Abstract: As an introduction to my group, I will very briefly summarize our work in various research areas which include surface engineering, numerical method development, aquatic locomotion, and sports analytics. The primary focus of this talk is mechanics of organ physiology. Our goal is to translate mechanics into clinical practice on par with radiology techniques. To that end, our generalized organizing framework is anchored on a portfolio of mechanics-informed imaging toolkits, virtual disease landscapes in mechanical parameter spaces, mechanics-based physiomarkers, and mechanistic underpinnings of pathologies. Using this framework, we are interrogating esophagus, aorta, lung, and uterus physiologies. As examples, foundational questions pertaining two separate pathologies will be addressed: 1. Can mechanical signatures be identified and used in diagnosing eosinophilic esophagitis (a disease identified only since early ‘90s but now one of the major causes of digestive system dysfunction)? 2. Is it possible to predict the onset of aortic aneurysm (“the silent killer” that took the life of Grant Wahl – an American soccer sportswriter – during 2022 FIFA world cup). The current standard of care has no predictive capability for the onset of aneurysm - it only gets diagnosed, if at all, after the fact.
Speaker Bio: Neelesh Patankar received his BS (B.Tech.) in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (1993) and his doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania (1997). Following his Ph.D., he was a post-doctoral associate with Prof. Daniel D. Joseph at the University of Minnesota until 2000. He joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University in 2000 where is currently a Professor. Neelesh is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He has received the NSF CAREER award, the International Conference on Multiphase Flow's Junior Award, the microFIP Prominent Research Award, and was selected to the Defense Science Study Group of the US. Neelesh has been on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Computational Physics, ASME Journal of Fluids Engineering, and Scientific Reports. He has also received several university-wide teaching awards at Northwestern University including Charles Deering McCormick Teaching Professorship.