Michael Ian Lapsley

I graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. I am currently in my fifth year as an Engineering Science PhD Candidate supervised by Prof. Tony Jun Huang. I am interested in all facets of Micro/Nanotechnology and am currently conducting research in the emerging field of Optofluidics.

My time as a graduate student has been a bit unconventional. I have never actually worked as a full time researcher! Initially, I spent half of my time as a teaching assistant. My first summer, I took an internship as a research/electrical engineer at TRS Technologies, a piezoelectric technology company founded by Dr. Thomas Shrout. Returning to graduate school after the summer, I resumed my TA position. The following summer, I returned to TRS to resume work as a research engineer, working on high-profile SBIR projects mostly funded by NASA. I remained part time at TRS while working on my PhD at Penn State until August of 2011. Having two children, a part time job demanding more responsibility and trying to finish my dissertation proved too stressful to continue. I decided to focus full time on my research to PSU to try and finish in the last year.

Through this adventure I have acquired a wide range of Engineering and Scientific skills:

Electrical Skills:

1. Analog electronic design. I have build several amplifier and driving systems for piezoelectric devices. Piezoelectric devices are tricky since they are large capacitive loads and special concerns must be taken to protect amplifiers and drivers from these reactive load. I self-learned about impedance matching and modeling, and amplifier protection circuity.
2. Test Equipment. I have become familiar with many common and uncommon electrical analysis equipment. I am comfortable working with high voltage amplifiers and drivers, low frequency and high frequency function generators, Impedance/Gain-Phase analyzers, several models of oscilloscopes, electrometers for high voltage current flow and insulation resistance

Extreme (High/low) Temperature Skills:

1. I have worked with both high temperature (1000 deg C) ovens for testing and fabrication
2. I have worked with liquid Nitrogen (-190 deg C) and cryogenic vacuum chambers.
3. I have analyzed thermal expansion of devices and materials at both low and high temperatures.
4. I have designed and fabricated acellerometers for 1000 deg C operation.

MEMS Skills:

1. I have been trained on micro/nanofabrication equipment and practices such as: contact lithography, Spin coaters, wet chemical etching, and deep reactive ion etching (DRIE).
2. I have designed and fabricated countless microfluidic devices.

Laboratory Skills:

1. I have worked will many high end microscopes to acquire images and data for microfluidics experiments.
2. I have worked on basic chemistry for creating solutions of nanoparticles, and salt solutions. I am vary familiar with the relationship of optical properties of salt solution and how the vary with concentration. 

Optics Skills

1. I have worked with a high powered Argon Ion laser for countless hours. I am particular familiar with setting up opical systems and safty.
2. I have worked with custom optical fiber systems and configurations to couple light into optical fibers.
3. I have researched many available high ppowered/miniture laser systems for optofluidic integration.
4. I have design and worked with integrated optical fiber and microfludic systems.
5. I have worked with optical analysis equipment such as optical power meters, and photodiodes.