People

Principal Investigator

Dr. Aysegul Gunduz

agunduz@bme.ufl.edu
@BrainMappingLab
LinkedIn

Dr. Aysegul “Ayse” Gunduz is an Associate Professor in the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida. Her research interests include neural interfacing, neural signal processing, neuromodulation, neurological disorders, as well as cortical and deep brain stimulation in human subjects. Dr. Gunduz earned her BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Middle East Technical University (Ankara, Turkey, 2001), North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC, 2003), and University of Florida (Gainesville, FL, 2008), respectively. She received postdoctoral training at Albany Medical College, Department of Neurology, and at the Wadsworth Center, Division of Translational Medicine in Albany, NY. Dr. Gunduz holds affiliations with the UF Fixel Institute for Neurological Disorders, Malcolm Randall VA Medical Center Brain Rehabilitation Research Center, UF Dept of Neuroscience, and UF Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Gunduz is the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE, 2019), National Science Foundation Early CAREER Award (2016), International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering Early Career Award (2015), Anita Borg Institute Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award (2017), UF Provost’s Excellence Award for Assistant Professors (2017), UF Pramod P. Khargonekar Junior Faculty Award for Excellence (2018), UF Preeminence Term Professorship (2017-20), UF Graduate Education Diversity Champion Award (2019), and UF Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute NIH KL2 Scholarship (2015). She is also a UF Research Foundation Professor (2019-22), a Pruitt Family Endowed Faculty Fellow (2017-20), and an IEEE Senior Member.

Graduate Students

Sarah Long, PhD Candidate

Sarah Long is a Biomedical Engineering PhD student with a BS in Biomedical Engineering from University of South Carolina. After 2 years of working in the medical device industry, she decided to pursue a graduate career in Biomedical Engineering. Her research interests include developing translational applications of technologies for patient’s suffering from neurological disorders. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, cooking, painting, and traveling.

sarah.long@ufl.edu
@SarahBethLong
LinkedIn

Brandon Parks, PhD Candidate

Brandon is an Electrical Engineering PhD student with a B. S. in Biomedical Engineering from University of Miami. His research interests include closed-loop deep brain stimulation, spectral analysis of local field potentials, and effective connectivity measures. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, programming, and building computers.

b.parks@ufl.edu
LinkedIn

Julieth Gómez Durán, PhD Student

Julieth is a Biomedical Engineering PhD student with a BS in Electronics Engineering from Universidad de la Costa in Colombia. After working as a Field Service Engineer for Roche and as a Pain Sales Representative for Medtronic, she received a Fulbright Scholarship and decided to pursue a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering at UF. She switched to the PhD after, and her research focuses on analyzing LFP signals from Tourette’s Patients implanted with deep brain stimulation devices. In her spare time, she likes traveling, painting, photography and hiking.

julieth.gomez@ufl.edu
@jugodu
LinkedIn

Natalie Geigel, PhD Student

Natalie is a Biomedical Engineering PhD student with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida. She decided to pursue a graduate career in BME to become a part of the research efforts to improve the lives of those suffering from neurological disorders. Her research focuses on using deep brain stimulation for Essential Tremor and other movement disorders. In her spare time, she enjoys dancing, going to Disney, and spending time with her family.

ngeigel@ufl.edu

Grace Lowor, PhD Student

Grace Lowor is a Biomedical Engineering PhD student with an MSc and a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Arizona State University and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology respectively. She has industrial experience working as a manufacturing associate at Dexcom, Inc and is currently focused on neuromodulatory research in the field of neural engineering. Grace hopes to impact lives in the society through her research. She enjoys working out and listening to music in her leisure time.

g.lowor@ufl.edu
LinkedIn

Ava Burgess, PhD Student

Ava is a Biomedical Engineering PhD student with a B.S. in General Engineering concentrating in Biomedical Engineering from Wake Forest University. During her undergraduate years, she assisted with conducting musculoskeletal research in the Weaver Lab at the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering & Sciences. These experiences led to her wanting to pursue graduate school in BME as she is interested in contributing towards the improvement of those with neurological disorders. Her research interests include deep brain stimulation, neuromodulation, therapeutics, and machine learning. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, music, football, and binging reality tv.

avaburgess@ufl.edu
LinkedIn

David Johnson, PhD Student

David is a Biomedical Engineering PhD student.

david.johnson2@ufl.edu

Undergraduate Students

Jenna Fullton

Jenna Fulton is a 4th year undergraduate student majoring in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida. Her current research interests include functional electrical muscle stimulation systems, neurodivergent disorders, and neural networks underlying cognitive processes such as attention and memory. In her free time, she enjoys baking, painting, and skating.

Sebastián W. Tirado-Vélez

Sebastian William Tirado-Vélez is a 3^rd year undergraduate student at the University of Florida, studying Computer Science & Biology with a minor in Health Disparities in Society. His current research interests include movement disorders, neural networks, bioinformatics, and cancer genomics. On his free time, he enjoys playing tennis and listening to vinyl records with friends.

Jeffrey Chen

Jeffrey Chen is a 3^rd year undergraduate student at the University of Florida, studying Biomedical Engineering. His current research interests include movement disorders, bioinformatics, and electroencephalography. On his free time, he enjoys playing badminton and programming.