Haley Smith Email & Phone Number

Flourtown, Pa

Philadelphia, Pa

My volunteer role is primarily focused on supplementing the professional services of the Physical Therapy program at CHOP. This amazing opportunity allows me to support patients, their families and staff through appropriate interactive tasks contributing to the physical therapy treatment of patients. Volunteer duties include but are not limited to the following: delivering equipment as needed to therapists, assisting therapists with patient activities, playing with patients and/or their siblings and helping maintain patient safety. Providing love and support to kids is one of my highest passions in life, and getting to do so at a facility like CHOP is beyond anything I could ever imagine.

Philadelphia, Pa

Engineered a nerve cuff electrode for the re-innervation of bladder function in individuals with spinal cord injuries and/or neurological disorders. Designed a nerve cuff for stimulation of sacral roots in a canine animal model of nerve transfer for bladder control. Produced a self-closing cuff using a memory-shape alloy that self-closes the silicone cuff around the nerve at body temperature, without the need for sutures.

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Through this fellowship, I worked on a research project to develop a simplified version of a graduate level experiment made to record and observe the flight tone modulations of Yellow Fever mosquitoes. The hope is that my contribution to ongoing mosquito research projects will help the scientific community to better understand a mosquitoes mating behavior! With an abundance of knowledge and understanding about this species, we may be able to one day disrupt, control and potentially prevent the spread of mosquito-borne diseases that affect millions worldwide!

Temple University Hospital, Medical Research

This past year, I was elected as team leader of a research and design team lead by PI Dr. Michel Lemay, a professor in bioengineering at Temple University, established to engineer a nerve cuff electrode for the reinnervation of bladder function in individuals with spinal cord injuries and/or neurological disorders. My election as team leader came as a result of a specific idea I introduced for the nerve cuff design: to utilize shape memory materials (specifically an Ni-Ti SMA alloy) embedded in the nerve cuff wall to facilitate surgical implantation due to a self-closing property of these materials under specific temperature thresholds. This idea came to me after discussing flaws with current nerve cuff electrodes used to restore bladder function with a professor of cell anatomy and biology at Temple University. Dr. Michael Ruggieri dedicates his time and skills to work on NIH funded projects to reveal pathogenic mechanisms of clinically relevant human disorders with the hopes of establishing clinical trials. His work on lower urinary tract denervation revealed many surgical implantation difficulties and complications, which inspired my idea of incorporating a shape memory alloy in the cuff design to help establish a more effective and efficient means of implanting such devices. Through this research, I developed skills in MATLAB programming and utilizing high speed motion capture systems while also applying mathematic computations of body mechanics, forces associated with locomotion, and other engineering principles of physiological systems.

Temple University, Philadelphia Pa

Master Of Science - Ms, Mechanical Engineering

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Bioengineering And Biomedical Engineering

Education record

Activities and Societies: Lacrosse, Field Hockey