This complex system sometimes misbehaves in ways that can be inconvenient, limiting or even fatal. When the rhythm of the heart is disturbed this is called a cardiac arrhythmia. Our group studies arrhythmias, in particular those involving the atria (the upper chambers of the heart). In this talk I will introduce the audience to the normal and some abnormal behaviors of the heart and discuss our work on understanding the mechanisms of two atrial arrhythmias in particular: atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter. I will also discuss implantable electronic device therapies using algorithms from our lab to automatically diagnose and treat these and other cardiac arrhythmias.

How does this all relate to photonics? I’ll shed some light on that during the talk.

Bio:
Alan V. Sahakian received the Ph.D. in ECE with a minor in CS, and the MSEE from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, working in the Willis Tompkins/John Webster group. His BS was in Applied Science and in Physics from the University of Wisconsin – Parkside. He is currently Professor of EECS and BME and the Associate Chair of EECS for the undergraduate program at Northwestern University. He is also the Director of the EECS Signals and Systems Division and a member of the academic affiliate staff at Evanston Hospital. While at Northwestern he received some teaching awards and chairs including the Bette and Neison Harris Chair, the Charles Deering McCormick Chair, the McCormick Teacher of the Year award, the McCormick Advisor of the year award and the Northwestern Alumni Association Teaching award. He has served as a resident visiting scholar in the Center for Excellence in Reliability and Maintainability at the Air Force Institute of Technology. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and served that society two terms as Vice President for Publications and Technical Activities. He is a Fellow of the IEEE. In addition to cardiac electrophysiology, his lab studies electromagnetic and photonic methods of medical imaging and diagnostics. His research is funded by the NSF, the Dr. Scholl Foundation and Medtronic, Inc.