Soft Tissue Biomechanics Lab - April Newsletter
Table of Contents
Brief Intro
Alumnus Story: Sotirios Kakaletsis (PhD ‘23)
New Member: Dr. Su Guvenir Torun
Member Spotlight: Sascha Granhold
Outreach Activities: Science Mill ‘25
Published, Accepted, and In-press
New Toys, Tools, and Gadgets
Brief Intro
I am super excited to send this first official newsletter. Much is happening in the Soft Tissue Biomechanics Lab. Often I don’t stop to reflect on our accomplishments and those of our alumni. I sincerely hope this newsletter allows us to do just that: stop, reflect, appreciate, and reach out. While the format of this newsletter may change over time, I hope to always share the story of a past member. For today’s newsletter that is a quick update from Sotiris. He is well-loved and sorely missed. I’d also like to welcome a new member, Su, and spotlight one of our existing members, Sascha. Finally, we have a few great accomplishments to celebrate. Collin, with the help of the whole lab, organized a super successful outreach event at the Science Mill. Additionally, we have a couple of papers to share that are either in press or have been published.
Enjoy and let me know your thoughts ❤️
What has Sotirios been up to?
Brief Note from Me: (Dr.) Sotiris (he is the guy in the cowboy hat) joined the lab anno 2018. He is sorely missed for his mad mechanics skills and dry humor. If you want to learn more about his work in the Soft Tissue Biomechanics Lab, check out his google scholar as well as his website.
“It’s been a bit over a year now -since February 2024- that I’ve been working as a Software Development Engineer for Altair Engineering. Altair is a computational and simulation software company, headquartered in Troy, Michigan, with many office locations around the world. I’m based in Altair’s office in Thessaloniki, Greece – a city I’ve lived in before as an undergraduate student, about 10 years ago -my favorite place!
As a Software Engineer, I’m a member of the finite element solver team (OptiStruct). I work on research, design and development of solver features related to implicit, structural simulations. My very first contribution -just recently released- is a curved beam element, used to simulate pipe bends, considering the effects of internal pressure. If that sounds a little interesting, please have a look at the documentation links: property and the element entries.
There are two things I enjoy the most about all this… First: reading about, learning and developing new simulation methods was, in fact, the part I enjoyed the most during my PhD. I’m happy that I continue to work on similar problems. Second: the view on my way home after a long day full of coding and debugging 😊.”
New Member: Su Guvenir Torun
We’re excited to welcome Dr. Su Guvenir Torun as the newest member of our lab. Su recently completed her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, where her research focused on the mechanical and structural characterization of atherosclerotic plaques. Her work integrated pre-clinical imaging, mechanical testing, finite element modeling, and machine learning—a multidisciplinary approach aimed at improving our understanding of soft tissue biomechanics.
Before her PhD, Su earned her Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. She also spent time at Georgia Tech as a visiting researcher, developing individualized finite element models of glaucomatous rat eyes. (Ask her about it—it’s more fascinating than it sounds!)
Her expertise spans experimental and computational biomechanics, with experience in MRI, ultrasound, micro-CT, microscopy, and advanced material characterization techniques. We're delighted to have Su on board and look forward to the innovative research she'll contribute to our team.
Welcome, Su!
Member Spotlight: Sascha Granhold
We’re incredibly proud to celebrate Sascha Granhold, one of our outstanding undergraduate research assistants. She is an Aerospace Engineering major slated to graduate this May! Sascha took both Statics and Aerospace Materials with me, and nothing but impressed me. So, I was happy to extend an offer to her as an undergraduate assistant.
Since then, she has accomplished amazing things under Alberto Madariaga's tutelage. Her main focus has been on building a mechanical test setup to quantify the visco-hyperelastic damage mechanics of PCL micro-fibers. Together with Alberto, she submitted her findings for publication, and we are eagerly waiting to hear back. In the meantime, please take a look below for a snapshot of her setup in which you can see an SEM image of one of her tiny PCL fibers and the mechanical test setup that she uses to quantify the mechanics of these fibers. In ‘a’, you see an SEM image of a fiber at 30,000x magnification; in ‘b,’ you see a miniscule beam used to displace a PCL fiber (you can’t see the fiber; it’s glued to the white holder by the yellow glue.) In ‘c,’ you see a motor (on the right) that displaces the slender beam against the fiber. By measuring the motor displacement and optically tracking the beam displacement, we can compute the fiber displacement and the force (via the beam bending stiffness). Together, we can convert those data into stress-strain graphs of 1um PCL fibers. Pretty amazing!!!!
Outreach Activities: Science Mill ‘25
In 2023, we started working with the Science Mill in Johnson City, TX. The Science Mill is a non-profit organization that brings hands-on learning to the broader Austin Community. Through a chance encounter with Co-Founder Bob Elde, we began a collaboration that has, to date, lasted for three years. In 2023, Dr. Gabriella Sugerman (Ella) organized our first collaborative event before Grace Bechtel, in 2024, continued the tradition. This year, Collin Haese organized an unforgettable event for the kids in the Science Mill and the Soft Tissue Biomechanics lab. As a team of ten lab members, we brought real hearts and conducted cardiac dissections with approximately 60 middle schoolers. Read more in this fantastic article that the Science Mill put together to highlight the event and Collin!
Published, Accepted, and In-Press
We’ve also made some scientific progress.
“Tricuspid valve leaflet remodeling in sheep with biventricular heart failure: A comparison between leaflets” was accepted in Acta Biomaterialia. Give it a read. This paper has been in the works for 5 years. First started by Will Meador (PhD ‘21), this project was a tough nut to crack. I am grateful to Colton for having taken it on. The results speak for themselves. Congrats Colton!
“Mechano‐Lysis in Whole Blood Clots: On How Mechanics Affect Clot Lysis, and How Lysis Affects Clot Mechanics” was accepted in Advanced Healthcare Materials. Check it out. This project first started under the leadership of Gabriella Sugerman (PhD ‘23) and was finished by Grace Bechtel. Amazing work Ella and Grace!
“Tricuspid valve edge-to-edge repair simulations are highly sensitive to annular boundary conditions” was accepted in the Journal for the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials. If you want to learn more, read it here. Collin’s work explores the importance of annular boundary conditions on the non-invasive repair of the tricuspid valve. Many thanks also to Mrudang Mathur (PhD, ‘24), who spearheaded the early development of the used methods.
New Toys, Tools, and Gadgets
Half the fun of this job is tools and gadgets. Our newest addition is a 4-axis CNC router. The Anolex 4030-Evo Ultra 2 will allow us to make rapid prototypes:
800W spindle can cut through wood, plastic, aluminum, PCB, brass, copper
15.8x11.8x5.1" work area
4th rotary axis
Closed-loop stepper motors
Thanks for reading! Got updates or stories to share? We’d love to feature you in a future issue—just reply to this email or drop us a note.