Kirill V. Larin, Ph.D.
Director of the laboratory
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Dr. Kirill V. Larin is the Chair of Biomedical Engineering and a Cullen College of Engineering Professor at the University of Houston. He also holds joint appointments in the Departments of Physiology and Biophysics at Baylor College of Medicine and Department of Optics and Biophysics at the Saratov State University (SSU) in Russia. Larin received his first M.S. in Laser Physics and Mathematics from the SSU (1995), his second M.S. in Cellular Physiology and Molecular Biophysics (2001) and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston (2002). His research contributions are in Biomedical Optics and Biophotonics and development and application of various optical methods for noninvasive and nondestructive imaging and diagnostics of tissues and cells. Larin is the recipient of Presidential Award from Russian President Boris Yeltsin recognizing his significant contributions in optics. He has also received Wallace Coulter Young Investigator Translation Award, Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the Houston Society for Engineers in Medicine and Biology, Herbert Allen Award from American Society for Mechanical Engineers, and SPIE Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award. Larin currently serves as an Instructor for short courses on Tissue Optics for the Optical Society of America. He is Fellow of SPIE, Optica, and AIMBE.
Salavat Aglyamov, Ph.D.
Research Associate Professor
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Dr. Salavat Aglyamov received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in applied mathematics in 1991 and 1993, respectively, from Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia. He received his Ph.D. degree in biophysics in 1999 from the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics, Pushchino, Moscow region, Russia. From 2001 to 2002 he worked in the Biomedical Ultrasonics Lab at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as a postdoctoral fellow, where he was engaged in mathematical modeling of behavior of the soft biological tissue under externally applied loading and as a research associate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He joined University of Houston as Research Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering in June 2017. He has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and chapters in two books. His research interests are in the areas of tissue biomechanics, elasticity imaging, and applied mathematics.
Manmohan Singh, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
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Dr. Singh completed his B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering in 2014 and earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering in 2018 at the University of Houston. He completed the Gulf Coast Consortia/National Library of Medicine Postdoctoral Training Fellowship in Biomedical Informatics and Data Science in 2020. Dr. Singh’s research is focused on high-resolution multimodal imaging combining functional and structural imaging, noninvasive optical imaging, tissue biomechanics, and image-based artificial intelligence.
Postdoctoral Researchers & Staff
Alexander Schill, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist
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Dr. Alexander Schill received his Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2006 and has more than 14 years of experience working with optics & lasers. Before coming to UH he worked for 6 years in R&D at Coherent, Inc. in Santa Clara, CA. His research interests include biomedical and adaptive optics, state-of-the-art laser sources, and development of new OCT applications.
Achuth Nair, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
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Dr. Achuth Nair received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Houston in 2022, and completed a training fellowship with the National Library of Medicine Training Program in Biomedical Informatics and Data Science at the Gulf Coast Consortia of Quantitative Biomedical Sciences. His research interests include structural and functional imaging using optical coherence tomography and tissue biomechanics.
Amandeep Singh, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral fellow
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Dr. Amandeep Singh received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, India in the Medical Optics and Sensors (MOS) Laboratory under the supervision of Prof. Renu John. Currently, he is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Houston in the lab of Dr. Kirill Larin. His research work is dedicated to developing an optical system for the biomechanical characterization of biological tissues in ex-vivo and in-vivo conditions. His research interests include optical coherence tomography, medical imaging, and image processing.
Christian Zevallos Delgado, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral fellow
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Christian received his Master of Science in Bioinformatics and Molecular Biochemistry from the George Washington University in 2020 and Bachelor of Engineering in Biotechnology from the Catholic University of Santa María, Arequipa-Peru in 2016. His past research involves the use of computational methods for protein modeling and gene expression analysis in cancer. His research interest involves the assessment of biomechanical properties in developmental biology using mouse and zebrafish embryos utilizing Reverberant Optical Coherence Elastography.
Geethangili Madamanchi, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
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Dr. Geethangili Madamanchi received her Ph.D. in Biochemical Sciences and Technology from the Chaoyang University of Technology, Taiwan in 2011. Her research focuses on non-invasive OCT/OCE of skin fibrosis in a bleomycin mouse model.
Graduate Students
Sajedeh Saeidi Fard
Ph.D. Candidate
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Sajedeh received her Master of Science in Photonics in 2019 from the Shahis Beheshti University, Tehran-Iran and Bachelor of Engineering in Optics and Laser Engineering from the Shahid Bahonar University, Kerman-Iran in 2015. Her past research involves the application of two-dimensional plasmonic biosensing platform for cellular activity detection under laser stimulation. Her research interest involves the assessment of biomechanical properties in developmental biology using mouse and zebrafish embryos utilizing high-resolution Brillouin microscopy.
Mohammad Dehshiri
Ph.D. Candidate
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Mohammad Dehshiri received his Master’s in physics with a focus on photonics from the University of Isfahan, Iran. He joined the Biomedical Optics Lab as a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Dr. Kirill Larin. Currently his research is focused on Optical Coherence Tomography/Elastography of mouse cornea and Brillouin microscopy. His research interests are biophotonics and investigating on optical and mechanical properties of biological tissues.
Sharon Shajan
Ph.D. Candidate
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Sharon Shajan is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Houston. She received her Master’s degree in Optical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, India. Before coming to UH, she worked on Frequency Domain Photoacoustic Imaging at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
Leah Lewis
Ph.D. Candidate
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Leah Lewis received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering at Hampton University in 2022. During her undergraduate tenure, Leah conducted research under D.O.D. laboratories including the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, as well as within chemical engineering department at Hampton University. Her current research interests are optical coherence tomography and multi-photon microscopy for imaging biological tissues and studying embryo development.
James Klein
Ph.D. Student
James Klein received his B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Houston in 2025. His current research interests include using optical coherence tomography, noninvasive tissue clearing techniques, and Brillouin microscopy to track embryonic development and assess the influence of various genetic and environmental factors on development.
Ali-Rayhaan Soonasra
Ph.D. Student
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Ali received his B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Houston in 2025. He is currently studying the effects of various teratogens, such as cannabinoids, on the fetal brain vasculature in a murine model using optical coherence tomography angiography.
Undergraduate Students
Henry Chuo
Henry Chuo is an undergraduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Houston. His current research involves the use of optical coherence elastography to analyze the biomechanical properties of corneas affected by ectasia.
Sanidh Shah
Sanidh Shah is an undergraduate honors biochemistry student at the University of Houston and a Tier One scholar. His current research focuses on tracking morphological changes in murine embryos using optical coherence tomography within the Biomedical Optics Laboratory.