Samuel Kassegne

Short Biography

Dr. Sam Kassegne holds a Ph.D. degree in engineering mechanics from Virginia Tech. His research interests are in the general areas of nanofabrication and micro devices (MEMS). His group has made significant contributions in the broad areas of carbon-based micro/nanofabrication and developed several innovative neural interfaces for intracortical, epicortical, and spinal cord signal recording and stimulation as part of bi-directional closed-loop brain-computer interface (BBCI) system.

Dr. Kassegne is currently deputy director of Center for Neurotechnology (CNT), NSF funded (~$40 million for 10 years) ERC (Engineering Research Center). The leading partner institutions are University of Washington and MIT. Dr. Kassegne has an extensive entrepreneurial and industrial experience in MEMS and other areas acquired through his start-up company (Grapheton) and employment at Nanogen, Microfabrica and Bentley Systems. He also has consulted for several companies such as Corning/Intellisense, SAIC, Nevada Nanotech, OxyHeal, Cooley LLP, Nokia, etc. Dr. Kassegne’s research has been funded by NSF, DOE, DOD (SPAWAR), Amco (Korea), etc.