Two Engineering at Illinois alums named to MIT Technology Review's 'Innovators Under 35' List

Two Engineering at Illinois alumni, Canan Dagdeviren (PhD, 2014, materials science and engineering) and Melonee Wise (BS, 2004, engineering physics and mechanical engineering; MS, 2006, mechanical engineering; PhD, 2007, mechanical engineering) have been named to MIT Technology Review's annual list of '35 Innovators Under 35.'

For over a decade, the global media company has recognized a list of exceptionally talented technologists whose work has great potential to transform the world. Past winners include Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google; Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook; and Jonathan Ive, the chief designer of Apple.

This year’s honorees will be featured online at www.technologyreview.com starting today, and in the September/October print magazine, which hits newsstands worldwide on Sept. 1. They will appear in person at the upcoming EmTech MIT conference Nov. 2–4 in Cambridge, Massachusetts (www.EmTechMIT.com).

This is the second honor of this magnitude this year for Dagdeviren. In January, she was named to Forbes lists of 30 Under 30, which highlights the 30 brightest game changers, movers, and makers under the age of 30 in 20 different fields.

Dagdeviren has developed flexible nano-generators that convert mechanical energy from internal organ movements into electric energy to power medical devices. These first-of-their-kind devices, a new class of biocompatible piezoelectric mechanical energy harvesters (PZT MEHs), are soft and flexible with extremely low bending stiffness, which allows them to conform to and laminate on the heart as well as on other soft tissues.

Under the rhythmic contraction of the heart muscle, the device bends and relaxes, which supplies enough trickle charge – a steady stream of charging current at low rate – to satisfy the needs of a pacemaker. This technology could extend the battery life of implanted medical devices or even eliminate the need of battery replacement, sparing patients from repeated operations and the risk of surgical complications.

Upon completing her undergraduate and master’s degree in Turkey, Dagdeviren was awarded a Fulbright Doctoral Fellowship and was admitted to the Materials Science and Engineering Department, under the supervision of Professor John A. Rogers, at Illinois in 2009.

Dagdeviren continued her work as a postdoctoral assistant at MIT for the Robert S. Langer Research Group, the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. In July, she was named a Junior Fellow at Harvard.

In 2014, Dagdeviren claimed the $20,000 Illinois Innovation Prize administered by the University of Illinois Technology Entrepreneur Center.

Wise is CEO of Fetch Robotics.  Prior to joining Fetch Robotics, she was CEO and co-founder of Unbounded Robotics, where she and her team introduced UBR-1 to the robotics world.  Along with the product debut, Wise and Unbounded were the inaugural winners of the RoboBusiness Pitchfire competition.  Before then, Wise was manager of robot development at Willow Garage, where she led a team of engineers developing next-generation robot hardware.  She has extensive experience developing and designing robot hardware and software. Some of her projects include developing algorithms, libraries, and hardware for an autonomous boat, car, personal robot platforms, and battle bots.   Wise is also currently a mentor in the Qualcomm Robotics Accelerator.