Dr. Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam

I am currently Associate Professor in Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras and I head the Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre (HTIC), a joint initiative of IIT Madras and Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology.

Education

  • Ph.D. – Electrical Engineering, University of California at Santa Cruz, U.S. 2006
  • M.S. – Electrical Engineering, North Carolina State University, U.S., 2003
  • B.Tech – Instrumentation Engineering, Anna University, India, 2001

Research Interests

Medical devices and diagnostics, biomedical instrumentation, affordable healthcare technologies, healthcare delivery models for resource constrained settings

Awards

Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) Young Engineer Award, 2015 IITM’s Institute R&D Award (Junior level), 2015

Career Summary

  • 8 years of graduate and post-doc R&D experience involving several biomedical devices for restoring biological functionality in diseases and disabilities such as blindness and paralysis. These projects were in collaboration with leading experts in ophthalmology, neurophysiology, electrophysiology, and MEMS systems, with technology from these projects transferred to real world systems including clinical implants in humans.
  • Returned to India with goal of setting up interdisciplinary R&D program for developing affordable medical technologies in the country to address unmet healthcare needs.
  • Since 2009, successfully built an ecosystem of technologists, clinicians and industry anchored at IIT Madras, culminating in setting up of Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre (HTIC) in 2011 as joint initiative of IITM and DBT.
  • Since 2011, HTIC has grown into a unique and leading med-tech innovation ecosystem in the country bringing together more than 20 medical institutions, industry, government agencies, collaborating with HTIC in developing affordable healthcare technologies for unmet clinical needs. Its 30+ member team of engineers and researchers is developing technologies in areas of cardiovascular, ultrasound, neonatal, oncology, intensive care, ophthalmology, diagnostics, are under development in collaboration with leading organizations, some of which have already reached the field through partnerships. A video summary of HTIC is available at https://htic.iitm.ac.in/?q=hticvideo.