People

The director of the MARS Lab is Professor Panos S. Shiakolas. Dr. Shiakolas was born and raised in Zodia, a small town in the island nation of Cyprus, until the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 during which his family became refugees. The family moved around the government controlled part of Cyprus and eventually settled in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. After completing high school at the Kykko Lyceum for Boys, he attended the Higher Technical Institute in Nicosia, Cyprus where he obtained the Higher National Diploma in Mechanical Engineering. Subsequently, he joined the National Guard of Cyprus for his military service where he served as a sergeant and honorably discharged in 1984. He joined the University of Texas at Austin in 1984 where he earned the BS and MS degrees in 1986 and 1988 respectively. He then joined The University of Texas at Arlington where he earned the PhD degree in 1992. All his degrees were in Mechanical Engineering in the areas of robotics and computer aided design. 

He worked as a Faculty-Research Associate at The University of Texas at Arlington from 1993 through 1996. He joined the faculty as assistant professor in 1996 and is currently tenured Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at The University of Texas at Arlington. 

Dr. Shiakolas’ research interests are in the generals areas of robotics, medical, manufacturing, microsystems, automation and controls fields as they apply to the betterment of society. In addition to his research interests, he is passionate about engineering education; he firmly believes and advocates that laying the correct foundations early in a student’s career, both undergraduate and graduate are very important, and in addition that theoretical frameworks should be demonstrated with hardware modules for better understanding. He has developed a number of educational and research testbeds and routinely demonstrates concepts in his courses in the areas of robotics, automation, and controls.
Dr. Shiakolas’ faculty profile.
Follow Dr. Shiakolas on orcid, Academia

The greatest resource of the MARS Lab are the researchers who participate in the diverse research activities of the lab. These researchers include doctoral, masters and undergraduate students. The interaction between these students with varying backgrounds and preparation levels provides the opportunities for the younger students to be mentored and for the older students the training to learn how to mentor. The resources of the lab promote excellence in research both theoretical and applied and exceptional educational opportunities. The students who have participated in the lab activities can be found by following the links for Current Researchers (Doctoral, Masters, Undergraduate) and for Alumni.

In addition to the students, we have been fostering collaboration with US based and international researchers in academia, medical field, and industry. A list of collaborators can be found by following this link (collaborators).

The information on this web page is provided as is and is updated appropriately (last updated on June 21, 2017 ).
If you find a mistake or omission, please email me (shiakolas@uta.edu) and I will be happy to correct it.

Alumni Lab Members:

Doctoral, Masters (MS), Masters (ME), Undergraduate

Current Lab Members:

• Doctoral
• Masters
• Undergraduate

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Doctoral Students

Tushar Saini, PhD

• Primary Research Area: Additive manufacturing
• Secondary Interests: Robotics, mechanical design, Python- based device control and analysis, Image analysis

Sudip Hazra, PhD

• Primary Research Area: Human-Robot interaction
• Secondary Interests: Robotics, mechanical design, mechatronics, LabVIEW based device control, Engineering Outreach and Education

Shashank Kumat, PhD

• Primary Research Area: Microrobotics for medical diagnosis and treatment.
• Secondary Interests: Dynamics, mechanical design, LabVIEW based device control, Engineering Outreach and Education

Samson Adejokun, PhD

• Primary Research Area: Microrobotics for medical diagnosis and treatment.
• Secondary Interests: Dynamics, mechanical design, LabVIEW based device control, Engineering Outreach and Education

Christopher (Chris) Abrego, PhD

• Chris presented and had his doctoral proposal accepted by his committee on April 27, 2017. The title of his proposal is “On the Application of Machine Learning on Grasping and Haptic Feedback”.
• Chris attended the ASME IMECE 2015 conference in Houston, TX and presented two papers on his research work.
• Chris has been selected as a CIRTL ambassador (Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) Network)(http://www.uta.edu/gradstudies/admitted/CIRTL%20UTA/index.php) in Summer 2015!
• Christopher passed his PhD Diagnostic Examination in January 2014. Congratulations! 
• Chris attended the PETRA 2013 conference in Rhodes, Greece in May 2013. He was awarded an NSF Scholar Award to attnd the Doctoral Consortium in PETRA 2013and he presented a paper on the development of a multi-interaction environment for human robot interaction research, Congatulations!

Prashanth Ravi, PhD

• Prashanth attended the ASME IMECE 2015 conference in Houston, TX and presented two papers on his research work.
• Prashanth was awarded the prestigious Kelcy Warren Graduate Fellowship from the college of engineering in Nov 2015. Congratulations!
• Prashanth was awarded the prestigious University Scholars Fellowship for the 2014-2015 academic year by the Honors College of UTA (May 2014). Congratulations!
• Prashanth passed his PhD Diagnostic Examination in January 2014. Congratulations!

Tushar Saini, MS

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Masters Students

Tushar Saini	Primary Research Area: Additive manufacturing methodologies for multi process and multi material scenarios
Phillip Zachary James	Primary Research Area: Additive manufacturing for biomedical scaffolds using βTCP MS Thesis (Materials Science major)
Samson Adejokun	Primary Research Area: Medical flexible robotics for diagnostics MS Thesis
Abdul Hafiz	Primary Research Area: Human robot interaction – artificial hand analysis MS Thesis
Kashish Dhal	Primary Research Area: Human-robot interaction – artificial hand analysis MS Thesis
Ravi Patel	Primary Research Area: Human-robot interaction – artificial hand analysis- Mechatronics MS Thesis
Parimal Patel	Primary Research Area: Additive Manufacturing for Biomedical Scaffolds MS Thesis
Vladimir Sosa (inactive)	Primary Research Area: Lower extremity device for rehabilitation
Ankit Batra (inactive)	Primary Research Area: 3D BioPrinting and Process Characterization MS Thesis

Undergraduate Students

Saul Gutierrez

Compton Cooper

Samantha Meeks, Aaron Romero, Britton Sanders, and Heriberto Ordonez 

UG Senior Design (Spring/Summer 2016)
Analysis, Design and Prototyping of a Mechanical Thumb

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Collaborators

The collaborators, some through more extensive collaboration than others, participated or provided input for research activities in the lab. 
Their input has and is greatly appreciated as it is the philosophy of the MARS lab that open discussions lead to great ideas and identification of challenging societal problems that need to be addressed. 
Our research on biomedical devices and tools is largely based on conversations with medical doctors.

A partial collaborator list, past and present, includes the following in alphabetical order and some of the titles might not be up to date.
If anyone is omitted, the omission was not intentional, so please do send me an email (shiakolas@uta.edu) and I will gladly correct it.

• Pranesh Aswath, Ph.D. – MSE Department, UTA; Provost and Executive Vice President, Texas State University
• Subhash Banerjee, M.D. – UT Southwestern Medical Center and VA Hospital, Dallas, Texas;
• Jonathan Bredow, Ph.D. – EE Department, UTA
• Manos Brilakis, M.D. – UT Southwestern Medical Center and VA Hospital, Dallas, Texas; Director, Center for Complex Coronary Interventions at Minneapolis Heart Institute
• Eftychios Christoforou, Ph.D. – University of Cyprus, Cyprus
• Robert Eberhart, Ph.D. – UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX
• Kristine Guleserian, M.D. – Children’s Hospital, Dallas, Texas
• Samir Iqbal, Ph.D. – EE Department, UTA; Program Director, Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships at National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Shiv Joshi, Ph.D. – AE Department, UTA; CTO at NextGen Aeronautics
• Elias Kontogiorgos, D.D.S. – Baylor College of Dentistry, Dallas, Texas
• Tom Lawley, Ph.D. (retired)
• Kent Lawrence, Ph.D. – MAE Department, UTA
• Edward Livingston, M.D. – (while at UT Southwestern Medical Center)
• Luca Maddalena, Ph.D. – MAE Department and ARC Director, UTA
• Mohammad Mayyas, Ph.D. – ENG Department, Bowling Green University, Ohio
• Sara McClaslin, Ph.D. – ME Department, University of Texas, Tyler, Texas
• William Nagy, D.D.S. – Baylor College of Dentistry, Dallas, Texas
• Lynne A. Opperman, Ph.D. – Baylor College of Dentistry, Dallas, Texas
• Prashant Ravi, Ph.D. – Department of Radiology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
• Mohsin Rizwan, Ph.D. – Mechatronics Department, University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore, Pakistan
• Danniel J. Scott, M.D. – UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas
• Dipen Shah, Ph.D. – HLA Engineers Inc., Dallas, Texas
• Harry Stephanou, Ph.D. – ARRI, UTA (deceased)
• Venu Varanasi, Ph.D. – Baylor College of Dentistry, Dallas, Texas; College of Nursing and Health Innovation, UTA
• Alfredo Valadez – Wynright Robotics, Arlington, Texas; Project Manager Global Facilities Services Group, Burns & McDonnell, DFW,
• Tre Welch, Ph.D. – UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas
• Jian Yang, Ph.D. – MSE Department, UTA; BE Department, Pennsylvania State University
• Philippe Zimmern, MD – UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas

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