Positions for BSc Projects, Graduate students (MSc, PhD) and Postdocs

Positions are available for BSc Projects, Postdocs and Graduate students who are interested in advanced studies in bioengineering applied to the respiratory and reproductive systems. Research projects in our lab include computational simulations, laboratory experiments and mechano-biology explorations. We are interested in graduates/undergraduates of engineering, physics or biology who are willing to apply engineering principles and methodologies to address challenges in biology and medicine especially where physical actuators or loadings play important roles. Our work is focused on problems in the respiratory and reproductive systems as can be seen in the description of the projects. Interested candidates are encouraged to contact Prof. David Elad and send their CV.

Tongue Kinematics during Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is strongly encouraged by societies and communities because breast milk provides nutrients and immunities required for growth and development during the first months after birth. In addition, during breastfeeding the infant is exercising his/her oro-facial muscles for future tasks of speaking and chewing, and also have higher oxygen saturation than bottle-fed infants. The process of breastfeeding requires dynamic synchronization between oscillation of the infant's mandible, rhythmic motility of the tongue, and the breast milk ejection reflex that drives maternal milk towards the nipple outlet.

The research objective is to perform a dynamic image processing of mid-sagittal submental ultrasound movie clips recorded during breast- and bottle feeding of healthy and tie-tongue infants (both pre- and post-frenotomy), to explore the kinematics of tongue in these cases.

Computational Model of Snoring

Snoring is defined as the sounds arising from vibrations of the soft palate and adjacent tissues during sleep resulting from turbulent airflow. Heavy snoring may lead to upper airway narrowing and even complete collapse and result in the obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome, which is correlated with high death rates.

The research objective is to develop a three-dimensional (3D) fluid-structure interaction (FSI) computational model to calculate the air flow and soft palate deformations fields during snoring. The calculations will be performed with the commercial finite-element package of ADINA.

Kinematics of Fish Feeding

Fish feeding is obtained in the process of suction (i.e., suction feeding), when the water is swallowed by the fish during the mouth opening. You can see videos of feeding fishes in the following link: http://www.youtube.com/user/Wainwrightlab.

The research objective is to perform a dynamic image processing of those videos by utilizing an advanced analysis techniques (e.g., active contours), to study the kinematics of different parts of fish head during the feeding.

The research will be held in collaboration with Dr. Roy Holzman from the Inter-University Institute in Eilat.

Computational Simulation of Fish Feeding

Fish feeding is obtained in the process of suction (i.e., suction feeding), when the water is swallowed by the fish during the mouth opening.

The research objective is to perform a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis to calculate the fluid flow field inside and outside the mouth of the fish during the mouth opening, to better understand the kinematics of fish feeding. The research will be held in collaboration with Dr. Roy Holzman from the Inter-University Institute in Eilat.