FALL 2024 | 17 wearable technology in the NBA. At the time, the Golden State Warriors won the first of their four-year rivalry in the NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers—a particularly exciting win for Seshadri, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. Soon after, Seshadri’s father sent him an article on wearable technology in the NBA and encouraged him to pursue wearable tech as a career. “I started reading about stuff they were doing and I thought, ‘This is really cool, like how you can monitor workloads and correlate that to injuries,’” Seshadri said. “It was a really fascinating mix of physiology, engineering and medicine. I was interested in all three. I credit my parents for giving me the keys and foundation to pursue my passion.” After learning more about the field, Seshadri contacted members of the Cleveland Browns medical team and ended up collaborating with them for more than seven years to study wearable tech. Seshadri’s passion for the subject matter led him to open the Seshadri Lab at Lehigh, which now has about 25 students, including those pursuing undergraduate, master’s and doctorate degrees. Most recently, the Seshadri Lab welcomed a visiting undergraduate researcher from SRM University in Chennai, India, and had several high school interns this past summer. An Interdisciplinary Lab Seshadri’s students say the lab is an interdisciplinary space that has given them hands-on experience and a chance to explore their interests. Tony Del Vecchio ’23 is a second-year master’s student studying bioengineering. He’s interested in mechatronics, a multidisciplinary field that combines mechanical engineering and electronics. He’s working on a smart, orthopedic knee brace. The brace will include a gyroscope sensor that can tell doctors how much range of motion a patient has, and determine how effective their rehabilitation treatment is. “I really like hands-on projects, getting to design stuff, and this is a very design-centric, mechanics- focused project,” Del Vecchio said. He loves the Seshadri Lab’s sense of community and how interdisciplinary it is. Many of the students have a bioengineering background, but their interests are diverse, including materials science, electronics and statistics, Del Vecchio said. Hayley Whitney ’24 is a first-year Ph.D. student studying bioengineering. Her undergraduate degree was in statistics. She credits the Seshadri Lab with giving her practical experience. “This is my first real opportunity having real-world data and to work with extracting that data, imperfect scenarios and problem-solving. It was my first chance to put my statistician’s hat on and say, ‘What can I do? How can I make a meaningful impact?’” Whitney hopes to eventually work on research in women’s sports. “My mom is a nurse, and I want to continue that legacy of creating things for the purpose of bettering the people around us,” she said. Anthony Cino ’24G, a master’s student studying bioengineering, is developing a wearable device for patients with dysphagia to assess their ability to swallow and help guide treatment. Currently available devices use wires, which are uncomfortable near a patient’s face. “As a student, I think it’s really cool that I get a glimpse into what goes into each of the different developmental steps in working toward a device that can actually be used on patients,” Cino said. “It’s a really amazing opportunity that I get to do research like this.” L Dhruv Seshadri, assistant professor of bioengineering, in the Seshadri Lab at Lehigh, where students are working to advance wearable technology. Hayley Whitney ’24, a first-year Ph.D. student studying bioengineering, collects data from a fellow student.
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