Michel Maharbiz

Research Areas

Research Centers

Biography

Michel M. Maharbiz is a Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the extreme miniaturization of technology focused on building synthetic interfaces to cells and organisms. He is one of the inventors of "neural dust", an ultrasonic interface for vanishingly small implants in the body. His group is also known for developing the world’s first remotely radio-controlled cyborg beetles. This was named one of the top ten emerging technologies of 2009 by MIT’s Technology Review (TR10) and was in Time Magazine’s Top 50 Inventions of 2009. Prof. Maharbiz received his B.S. from Cornell University and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley under nanotechnologist Professor Roger T. Howe (EECS) and synthetic biologist Professor Jay D. Keasling (ChemE); his thesis work led to the foundation of Microreactor Technologies, Inc. which was acquired in 2009 by Pall Corporation. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE (Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society) and a member of the Society for Neuroscience. Prof. Maharbiz is a Chan-Zuckerberg (CZ) Biohub Investigator (2017), a Bakar Fellow (2014), recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2009), a GE Scholar and an Intel IMAP Fellow. Michel’s long term goal is understanding developmental mechanisms as a way to engineer and fabricate machines.

Education

  • 2003, PhD, EECS, University of California, Berkeley
  • 1997, BS, EE, Cornell University

Selected Publications

  • D. Seo, R. Neely, K. Shen, S. U, E. Alon, J. M. Rabaey, J. M. Carmena, and M. Maharbiz, "Wireless recording in the peripheral nervous system with ultrasonic neural dust," Neuron, vol. 91, pp. 529-539, April 2016.
  • J. Hsia, W. Holtz, M. Maharbiz, M. Arcak, and J. Keasling, "Modular synthetic inverters from zinc finger proteins and small RNAs," PLoS ONE, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. e0149483, Feb. 2016.
  • R. Muller, H. Le, W. Li, P. Ledochowitsch, S. Gambini, T. Bjorninen, A. Koralek, J. M. Carmena, M. Maharbiz, E. Alon, and J. M. Rabaey, "A minimally invasive 64-channel wireless uECOG implant," Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 344--359, 2015.
  • J. H. Tu, M. Arcak, and M. Maharbiz, "Decoupling translational and rotational effects on the phase synchronization of rotating helices," Phys. Rev. E, vol. 91, pp. 023018, Feb. 2015.
  • E. Moradi, K. Koski, T. Bjorninen, R. Muller, P. Ledochowitsch, L. Sydanheimo, E. Alon, M. Maharbiz, J. M. Rabaey, L. Ukkonen, and R. Rahmat-Samii, "Advances in implantable and wearable antennas for wireless brain-machine interface systems," in Radio Science Meeting (USNC-URSI NRSM), 2014 United States National Committee of URSI National, 2014, pp. 1--1.
  • R. Muller, H. Le, W. Li, P. Ledochowitsch, S. Gambini, T. Bjorninen, A. Koralek, J. M. Carmena, M. Maharbiz, E. Alon, and J. M. Rabaey, "A miniaturized 64-channel 225uW wireless electrocorticographic neural sensor," in Solid-State Circuits Conference Digest of Technical Papers (ISSCC), 2014 IEEE International, 2014, pp. 412--413.
  • D. Seo, J. M. Carmena, J. M. Rabaey, M. Maharbiz, and E. Alon, "Model validation of untethered, ultrasonic neural dust motes for cortical recording," Journal of neuroscience methods, 2014.
  • A. Bertrand, D. Seo, F. Maksimovic, J. M. Carmena, M. Maharbiz, E. Alon, and J. M. Rabaey, "Beamforming approaches for untethered, ultrasonic neural dust motes for cortical recording: a simulation study," in Proc. Int. Conf. of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Chicago, Illinois, USA, 2014.
  • D. J. Cohen, W. J. Nelson, and M. Maharbiz, "Galvanotactic control of collective cell migration in epithelial monolayers," Nature materials, 2014.
  • A. Rufino Ferreira, J. Hsia, M. Arcak, M. Maharbiz, and A. Arkin, "Pattern formation with a compartmental lateral inhibition system," in Proceedings of the 53rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 2014, pp. 5413-5418.
  • J. Van Kleef, T. Massey, P. Ledochowitsch, R. Muller, R. Tiefenauer, T. Blanche, H. Sato, and M. Maharbiz, "Cyborg insects, neural interfaces and other things: building interfaces between the synthetic and the multicellular," in Proceedings of the Conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe, 2013, pp. 1546--1546.
  • P. Ledochowitsch, R. Tiefenauer, B. Pepin, M. Maharbiz, and T. Blanche, "Nanoflex for neural nanoprobes," in Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems (TRANSDUCERS \& EUROSENSORS XXVII), 2013 Transducers \& Eurosensors XXVII: The 17th International Conference on, 2013, pp. 1278--1281.
  • D. J. Cohen and M. Maharbiz, "A Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Guide to Using Carbon Nanotubes for Stretchable Electronics and Sensors," in Nanoscale Sensors, Springer, 2013, pp. 225--244.
  • V. G. Krishnan, V. Romanin, V. P. Carey, and M. Maharbiz, "Design and scaling of microscale Tesla turbines," Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, vol. 23, no. 12, pp. 125001, 2013.
  • J. Van Kleef, T. Massey, P. Ledochowitsch, R. S. Muller, R. Tiefenauer, T. Blanche, H. Sato, and M. Maharbiz, "Cyborg insects, neural interfaces and other things: building interfaces between the synthetic and the multicellular," in Proceedings of the Conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe, 2013, pp. 1546--1546.
  • D. Seo, J. M. Carmena, J. M. Rabaey, E. Alon, and M. Maharbiz, "Neural dust: an ultrasonic, low power solution for chronic brain-machine interfaces," arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.2196, 2013.
  • P. Ledochowitsch, A. Koralek, D. Moses, J. M. Carmena, and M. Maharbiz, "Sub-mm functional decoupling of electrocortical signals through closed-loop BMI learning," in Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2013 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE, 2013, pp. 5622--5625.
  • J. P. van Kleef, T. Massy, and M. Maharbiz, "An ocellar-based flight control system for flying insects," IEEE EMBC Short Papers No, vol. 2664, 2013.
  • T. Bjorninen, R. Muller, P. Ledochowitsch, L. Sydanheimo, L. Ukkonen, M. Maharbiz, and J. M. Rabaey, "Design of wireless links to implanted brain--machine interface microelectronic systems," Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, IEEE, vol. 11, pp. 1663--1666, 2012.
  • J. Hsia, W. Holtz, M. Maharbiz, and M. Arcak, "New architecture for patterning gene expression using zinc finger proteins and small RNAs," in Proceedings of the 51st IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 2012, pp. 1633-1638.

Awards, Memberships and Fellowships