Azita Emami

Emami was born in Nain, Iran.[1] She studied at an all-girls high school, where she became interested in hardware design.[2] She earned her bachelor's degree in electronic engineering at the Sharif University of Technology in 1996.[1] During her undergraduate degree she created a high performance synthesizer with Direct Digital techniques.[1] She joined Stanford University for her graduate studies, earning a master's degree in 1999 and a PhD in 2004.[3] At Stanford University she was a member of the very-large-scale-integrated (VLSI) research group, where she worked on integrated circuits and system design.[4] She joined the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in 2004, working on communication technologies.[4] She was an Assistant Professor at Columbia University from 2006 to 2007.[4] Her early work used simulations and measurement to evaluate CMOS technology operating at sub-Nyquist rates.[5]

Emami joined the California Institute of Technology in 2007. She was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to investigate integrated systems in 2008, studying the electro-optical connects in integrated systems.[6][7] She was awarded an Okawa Foundation grant in 2010, allowing her to investigate the design of high performance sensors.[8] In 2015 Emami was appointed as a Principal Investigator of the Heritage Medical Research Institute.[9]

Emami's work involves the design of energy efficient ways to interface the information and physical worlds. Her research group, MICS (Mixed-mode Integrated Circuits and Systems), study circuits for data communication, sensing and biomedical devices.[10][11] She focusses on low-power consumption devices, such as microdevices that can act as photoreceptors for people who suffer from vision loss.[12] She achieves low power consumption by using clocking techniques.[4] The photoreceptor-like devices can transmit information to the retinal nerves, and, crucially, can operate at low power as any overheating may damage human tissue.[12]

In a collaboration with the Doheny Eye Institute, Emami developed retinal eye implants that were based on ultra-low power flexible circuits.[13] The circuits included hundreds of electrodes that could be used to stimulate the cells in the eye.[13] Designing electronic components for the eye is not trivial - unlike most circuitry, they cannot be flat. Emami collaborated with an origami expert to develop an implant that could match the contour of a retina.[13] Following this project, Emami worked with Yu-Chong Tai to create intraocular pressure sensors that can monitor eye pressure in patients who suffer from glaucoma.[14] To ensure the sensors are biocompatible, Emami encapsulated them in 'Parylene-on-oil', a silicone-oil bubble surrounded by Parylene.[14][15] Working with Axel Scherer, Emami has developed an implantable glucose monitor that can transmit information via bluetooth to a wearable reader.[12] The sensors can alert physicians in the event of a blood sugar dip or spike.[12] One of her undergraduate students proposed a way for the glucose sensor to operate on low-power, using an analog to digital conversion.[12]

In her position at the Heritage Medical Research Institute, Emami creates microdevices that can be used to monitor health and provide treatment inside patients' bodies.[16] Emami has developed a biosensor that can continuously monitor vital information, including blood sugar, pH levels and cortisol, as well as acting as a therapeutic system, releasing insulin or other medicine.[3] She collaborated with Mikhail Shapiro to develop a device called 'Addressable Transmitters Operated as Magnetic Spins' (ATOMS), which uses principles of magnetic resonance imaging to locate the device in the human body.[12] The ATOMS chips contain integrated resonators, sensors and wireless transmission technology, which allows them to be located using magnetic fields.[17] Her group are currently evaluating the performance of ATOMS in vitro and in vivo, monitoring device migration in live mice and creating the platform that will allow navigation in high-precision surgery.[18] She has also investigated efficient neural interfaces.[19] In 2017 Emami was appointed the Andrew and Peggy Cherng Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering at Caltech. The Chair is endowed by the co-founders of Panda Express.