- Conformable Decoders
Aastha is a PhD student at the conformable decoders. Her research interests lie in exploring the physical nature of sound and its interaction with the human body. Ultrasound (US) has long been used in applications for sensing and imaging, while its capacity for actuation has been under-explored. Aastha's research seeks to harness both the wave and inertial nature of sound for frequency-specific actuation patterns.
Aastha is an MIT Presidential Fellow and a Lisa K. Yang Fellow. She brings together expertise in multiphysics simulation, rapid prototyping, and experiment and interface design to conceptualize and realize novel US technologies. Notably, she developed a wearable US-patch for transdermal drug delivery, and a computer-vision based virtual assistant for personalized US-breast cancer screening. Aastha's current research focuses on US-responsive metamaterial structures for intelligent drug delivery systems.
She earned her bachelors in Mechanical Engineering at BITS-Pilani, Goa (India), and her masters in Bioengineering at UC Berkeley. Prior to joining the Media Lab, Aastha pursued a career in R&D at Ximedica (now Veranex) leading projects in design, experimentation and benchtop validation of novel medical devices (an extracorporeal fluid circuit for an artificial womb, and a RF non-invasive vasectomy device). She is passionate about advancing and democratizing science and technology through robust, elegant, and first-principles-based design.