Category Archives: News

Sri Sarma was selected to receive an NIH Outstanding Investigator Award meant to help investigators make meaningful contributions to neuroscience by providing greater funding stability, flexibility, and support for overall research projects by funding up to $750,000 per year for up to eight years.

Sri’s proposal for the award, “EEG Biomarkers Derived from Dynamical Network Models Enable Rapid Paths to Accurate Diagnosis and Effective Treatment of Epilepsy,” seeks to establish novel EEG biomarkers and computational tools that will enable rapid and accurate diagnosis of epilepsy followed by a rapid path to an effective treatment.

Such a program entails major advances in conceptual knowledge of how epileptic cortical networks behave and change during drug and stimulation treatment, gleaned from dynamic network models (DNMs). Her lab has pioneered derivation of novel EEG biomarkers for epileptogenicity from DNMs and is well positioned to address major pain points in the workflow of diagnosing and treating epilepsy.

 

Sridevi Sarma, associate professor of biomedical engineering and associate director of the Institute for Computational Medicine, is one of 10 recipients of the L’Oréal USA For Women in Science Program’s Changing the Face of STEM mentoring grants.

The CTFS program supports former L’Oréal USA For Women In Science fellows in their efforts to inspire the next generation of girls in STEM. Awards are administered by the American Associate for the Advancement of Science.

“Inspiring the next generation of women in STEM is a key component of the For Women In Science program,” said Lauren Paige, vice president of public affairs and strategic initiatives at L’Oréal USA, in a press release. “We are proud to build on this commitment through our Changing the Face of STEM grant program and support our fellows in their efforts to promote STEM education in communities across the country.”

Sarma—a 2008 L’Oréal USA For Women In Science fellow—will use the grant to support a physics project with the Girl Scouts of Central Maryland. Five Girl Scout Cadette (grades 6-8) troops will come to Johns Hopkins University next spring and compete to build roller coasters out of household materials. The winning team will win tickets to Six Flags America.

Click here to read the full list of grant recipients.

Sri Sarma, associate director of the Institute for Computational Medicine, is the recipient of the Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising. This award, created by Capers and Marion McDonald, is given to honor teachers, researchers, and administrators who have consistently supported the personal and professional development of their students. Sarma will be recognized for her achievement at the 2021 Whiting School of Engineering Convocation Ceremony on Thursday, May 27.

In addition to her role at the ICM, Sarma is an associate professor of biomedical engineering and vice dean for graduate education. She is the principal investigator of Neuromedical Control Systems Lab where she mentors undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows in their research and professional development. Her research interests include modeling, estimation and control of neural systems using electrical stimulation.

Click here to learn about Sri (spoiler, her favorite movie is Forest Gump) and what she has to say about the future of science here to the Kalvi Foundation: https://kavlifoundation.org/news/patterns-in-the-brain

Research description:

Stereotactic EEG (sEEG) is an electrophysiological recording modality that obtains high temporal resolution of brain tissue’s electrical activity. In addition, it can sample deep structures of the brain. SEEG-Kit (SEEK) is a set of software tools that aims to merge data modalities (T1 MRI, CT, sEEG) and sEEG time-series analysis to robustly visualize data in 3-D and 4-D. SEEK is currently used in its alpha stage at Johns Hopkins Hospital for epilepsy monitoring. We are currently looking for a research assistant to join our research group in helping further develop SEEK. If you are interested in helping build out a next-generation data-analysis and visualization tool, please get in touch with us.

What you will gain:

• Experience contributing robust software to a research tool that is used by neuroscience and clinical teams
• Opportunities to be included on publications that utilize software tools built by you

Research associate qualifications:

We are looking for eager and driven engineers to help build out SEEK and its different components, specifically in visualization. We are looking for undergraduates who are ready to learn and contribute to an open-source set of packages. The minimum set of requirements are:

• Entry-level software developer skills
• Eager to learn
• Familiarity with data structures

Preferred qualification include:

• Comfortable with the following technologies:
  o Git: Version control
  o NodeJS: Backend server
  o threejs: Data visualizations for the web
• Comfortable contributing to open-source
• Familiar with unit-testing and continuous integration testing
• Familiarity with neuroimaging