Lab Members

Bart Bortnik, PhD, received his doctorate in Photonics from the Electrical Engineering Department of UCLA in 2007. He subsequently led the team at JPL/NASA responsible for the space-grade Optics/Fiber/Laser assembly of the OPALS project, a laser-based optical communications technology demonstration which was launched and installed onto the International Space Station. He has authored or co-authored over 20 publications and conference proceedings. In his spare time, Bortnik enjoys machining metal parts and assembling automated CNC lens grinding and polishing machinery for the fabrication of microoptical elements for endoscope applications.

David Scott Kittle received his doctorate from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University in May 2013, where he worked on computational imaging systems under David J. Brady, PhD. Kittle received his bachelor's degree in Systems Engineering from Walla Walla University in 2005. He worked for the Loma Linda University Department of Radiation Medicine under Robert Pearlstein, MD (Neurosurgery, Duke University School of Medicine), prior to beginning graduate school at Duke University. Kittle joined the Department of Neurosurgery under Keith Black, MD, at Cedars-Sinai in September 2013. His publications include conference papers and demonstrations (10), journal articles (16) and U.S. patents (2).

Zhaojun Nie, PhD, received her bachelor of science in Electrical Engineering from Xi'an Institute of Post & Telecommunication in 2007 and her master of science in Optoelectronics Engineering from Beijing Institute of Technology, China, in 2009. She received her doctorate in Biomedical Engineering from McMaster University in Canada, June 2014. Nie joined the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai in August 2015. Her research focuses on intraoperative brain tumor detection using a time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy technique.

Aishani Ataliwala received her bachelor of science in Bioengineering from UCLA in June 2016. At UCLA, she was published in the Bioengineering and Translational Medicine Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering Journal for her work on how delivery of IL-10 encoding lentivirus through multiple channel bridges can reduce neuroinflammation. She joined the Department of Neurosurgery in September 2016.