Professional Profile

Although music has a very important place in their lives, Ashwin and Rohin are also engineers by profession and are both currently pursuing postgraduate degrees at the University of Toronto. A few points on their research are detailed below.

Reflecting on Refraction

Ashwin is currently completing his PhD in Electromagnetics at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

His research involves synthesizing materials that exhibit properties not found in nature, so called “metamaterials” that refract light in unique and incredible new ways.

Such materials have tremendous potential for practical applications, such as: the ability to make lenses that are able to print smaller and faster microchips, increase the storage of CDs and DVDs by hundreds of times, and image tumours in the body with unprecedented resolution. As reported recently in the news, such materials can also be designed to render objects invisible, and are being investigated for cloaking technologies.

Mending Broken Hearts

Rohin is currently pursuing his PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering. His laboratory focuses on engineering cardiac tissue.

Rohin is currently developing a cell culture system to study how cells interact and form functional tissues in the body. Such systems can ultimately lead to a beating “cardiac patch” to aid in repairing damaged or diseased heart tissue.