Hariri Institute Welcomes Four New Faculty Affiliates

Boston University’s Hariri Institute for Computing is pleased to welcome four new faculty affiliates: Anand Devaiah, MD, professor of neurosurgery and ophthalmology; Charlene Ong, ND, MPHS, assistant professor of neurology and neurosurgery; Patrick McNamara, PhD, associate professor of neurology; and Xin Zhang, PhD, Professor of Engineering. 

Anand Devaiah, MD, is an otolaryngologist (ENT) at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and a member of the BU-BMC Cancer Center. Dr. Devaiah is also a professor of neurosurgery and ophthalmology at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. He received his medical degree from University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and has been practicing at BMC since 2002. Dr. Devaiah specializes in endoscopic minimally invasive skull base surgery, otologic/vestibular disorders, lateral skull base diseases and tumors, anterior skull base tumors/paranasal sinus diseases, head and neck surgery, head and neck cancer, and general otolaryngology.

Charlene Ong, MD, MPHS, is an assistant professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Chobanian aNd Avedisian School of Medicine and clinical neurointensivist at Boston Medical Center, and a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. She received her undergraduate degree at University of Pennsylvania, her MD at Columbia University and her Master’s in Population Health Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine. Ong’s current research focuses on the development and validation of data-driven tools to support clinical decision making in patients with catastrophic neurologic injury including ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, traumatic brain injury, and anoxic brain injury. Through understudied physiologic biomarkers, machine learning methods, and multimodal risk prediction methods, she aims to reduce morbidity and optimize treatment decision making in patients with acute neurologic diseases like epilepsy, Alzheimer disease and other dementias. 

Xin Zhang, PhD, is a distinguished professor of engineering at Boston University’s College of Engineering in the department of mechanical engineering. Zhang received her PhD from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and post-graduation she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her areas of interest include metamaterials, which is my material engineered to have a property that is rarely observed in naturally occurring materials, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), novel micro-and nanotechnologies for power generation, energy conversion, photonic, optical, and biomedical applications. Zhang’s most recent research has focused on metamaterials, both those that enable highly efficient, air-permeable sound silencing and noise reduction and those that markedly boost MRI signal-to-noise ratio and thus significantly improve the performance of MRI. Zhang is the director of the Laboratory of Microsystems Technology (LMST) at Boston University. 

Patrick McNamara, PhD, is an associate professor of neurology at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and the VA New England HealthCare System. Upon graduating from the behavioral neuroscience program at Boston University in 1991, he trained at the Aphasia Research Center at the Boston VA Medical Center in neurolinguistics and brain-cognitive correlation techniques. McNamara currently runs The McNamara Lab at BU’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine where his team takes a cognitive neuroscience and psychological approach to the study of Parkinson’s Disease, religion, and sleep. McNamara’s current research project focuses on developing a computational model of REM that changes power in relation to nightmares that occur during REM sleep, the stage of sleep where most dreams happen. His team is using data that was gathered by having 150 participants wear EEG wearables, a non-invasive way to record brain signals while people are out of the lab, for two weeks and that data is being used to build a computational model of REM breakdown patterns and resultant nightmares. 

The Hariri Faculty Affiliate Program is open to all BU faculty members pursuing research projects, or leading teaching or training initiatives in computing or computational sciences. To learn more about the program and how to apply, visit /hic/how-to-get-involved/for-faculty/faculty-affiliates/.