Don VanderLaan graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University in 2009, and joined Stanislav Emelianov’s research group at the University of Texas at Austin in 2011. In 2015, he moved with the research group to Georgia Institute of Technology, where he is currently a Research Engineer in the Ultrasound Imaging & Therapeutics Research Laboratory.
He has interests in software development, computational algorithm implementation, discrete component analog and digital circuitry, medical imaging physics, and laser design. His primary research projects are intravascular photoacoustic imaging, optical coherence tomography, development of novel real-time ultrasound imaging modalities, and novel phosphorescent-based contrast agent development.
Outside work, he spends time building robotic systems from the ground up, enjoying it particularly because of the wide variety of skills involved – software development and user interface design, brushless servo control, high-power semiconductor circuitry, control theory, mechanical fabrication, and most interesting of all: reverse engineering of outdated systems to repurpose parts.