FOCUS ON NEW FACULTY:
Associate Professor Tom N. Krupenkin
 ssociate Professor Tom
Krupenkin enjoys the climate at UW-Madison. Not the weather—although
to the Russian native, even a blustery Wisconsin winter seems mild.
For Krupenkin, the best thing about working at UW-Madison is the atmosphere
of collaboration.
“This is a large university with strong research, a lot of departments,
and very strong interactions between the departments—no partitions,
no firewalls—so people can work together,” says Krupenkin.
“That was very attractive.”
As a researcher with backgrounds in physics, polymers, mechanics, interfaces
and liquids, Krupenkin values interdisciplinary interaction. He joined
the College of Engineering after nine years as a technical staff member
at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. His quest for balance between basic
and applied research led him to seek a faculty position.
Krupenkin’s research focuses on solid-liquid interaction, an area
that affects many other fields, including microfluidics, biology and
propulsion. “Wherever there is a liquid, it has to be in something,”
says Krupenkin. “It’s interacting with some type of solid.
If you can change this interaction, you can do a lot of interesting
things that aren’t possible right now.”
Currently, he is using nanotechnology to make surfaces with dynamic
wettability—that is, the surfaces can change how “slippery”
they are. In one stage, the surface is hydrophilic, or wettable, so
liquids spread out across the surface. Then, with the flip of a switch,
the surfaces can be made extremely hydrophobic, or liquid-repelling,
causing any liquid on the surface to bead up.
Such surfaces could have a huge effect in microfluidics—for example,
in lab-on-a-chip technologies, where tiny volumes of liquids are constantly
in contact with channels and chambers. The presence or absence of drag
could change the properties of microfluidic systems—or alternately,
in another field, could revolutionize underwater propulsion. Dynamic
surfaces could even facilitate stem cell differentiation.
“This is where you can actually balance basic and applied research,”
says Krupenkin. “There are a lot of things that aren’t understood
yet. On the other hand, you can already develop applications.”
As a cluster hire, Krupenkin had the freedom to choose his home department.
He chose mechanical engineering for several reasons. “I think
I have very good relations with the people in this department. I really
feel that I can contribute to the growth of this department,”
he says. “So I thought, ‘Why would I search for anything
else?’”
FOCUS ON NEW FACULTY:
Assistant Professor Michael R. Zinn
 or most people, a robot that performs heart surgery
is the stuff of science fiction. For Assistant Professor Michael
Zinn, it’s reality.
Zinn’s research focuses on human-centered robotics, or robots
that work closely with their human users. “I’m a big believer
that the most useful applications of robots are the ones that augment
human capabilities,” says Zinn. Minimally invasive robotic surgery
is a classic example: It’s a very complicated system that enhances
the surgeon’s abilities, yet is completely dependent on the surgeon’s
knowledge and skill.
Such complex robotic systems require machines that not only receive
and follow commands from the user, but also provide constant feedback.
A surgeon, for example, should have not only a visual display of the
operation in progress, but also should have a sense of “touch,”
or the robot’s reflection of measured and virtual forces as the
instruments navigate body tissues. Such feedback falls under the field
of haptics, another of Zinn’s specialties. “The ideal is
that you don’t know you’re holding onto a device,”
says Zinn. “It’s an immersive experience.”
Zinn joined the mechanical engineering faculty in fall 2007 after four
years as the director of systems and control at Hansen Medical, a biotechnology
start-up company where he helped to design and build a robotic catheter
system for cardiac surgery. The surgeon uses a three-dimensional force-reflecting
mouse to guide a long, flexible tube through the heart to treat a condition
called atrial fibrillation.
Zinn hopes to continue pursuing the research topics he developed at
Hansen Medical. “The advantage to me is that I’ve spent
the last four years doing cutting-edge research, and I can build on
that, both on the development side and the conceptual side,” he
says.
Since robotics is a field that touches on mechanical design, electrical
design, software, controls, and systems theory, Zinn’s research
compliments that of many other UW-Madison faculty—particularly
Associate Professor Nicola Ferrier, who specializes in visual control
of robots. Zinn hopes to explore collaborative research opportunities,
since the interdisciplinary nature of robotics is what first drew him
to the field.
“I’m kind of a roboticist in the complete sense in that
I’m very interested in the component-level technology, like the
sensors and the mechanical design, but I’m equally interested
in how it all fits together and how to make the system perform as best
as it can,” Zinn says.
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