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Electrical and computer engineering major Prashant Poddar ’04 (Ranchi, India) worked on a research project over the January interim session to improve the microwave antennas used in medicine. As an EXCEL Scholar with William D. Jemison ’85, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, Poddar explored the use of a finite element electromagnetic simulator for the analysis and design of the antennas.
“This gave him good insight into what research is like,” says Jemison, who expressed appreciation for the student’s enthusiasm. “It’ll help him make choices in the future.”
According to Poddar, doctors use antennas to apply microwave energy to create regions of local hyperthermia within the human body. Antennas have a role in various medical procedures, including microwave balloon angioplasty, the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia and tumescent liposuction, he says.
“Proper antenna design is critical to the success of these procedures,” says Poddar. However, the interaction between microwave energy and the human body is very complex due to the “lossy” nature of the biological media, which means it causes the antenna to lose energy.
With the exception of very simple designs, the antennas can’t be analyzed theoretically, Poddar explains, adding that there are numerical analysis tools to accurately simulate and analyze the antenna’s performance in lossy media.
A member of the fencing team, Poddar practiced and participated in meets over the interim session in addition to serving as a residence adviser. The interim session went very well, he says, especially because many of his friends were also on campus.
“The Dean’s Office organized several interesting activities and the work kept me busy as well,” he says. “I was very excited to be doing work of this nature with a professor at Lafayette. This now appears to be a cliché, but it is a great strength of the college to be able to offer such opportunities to us to further our education.”
“Lafayette has pleasantly surprised me in such ways more than once,” Poddar adds. “There seems to be a storehouse of opportunities just waiting to be discovered and explored.”
Poddar is a graduate of National Junior College in Singapore, where he held a prestigious scholarship from Singapore Airlines and the Singapore Ministry of Education. He is a Writing Associate and a tutor for English as a Second Language. Poddar also is a member of the International Students Association, the Asian Cultural Association, the Investment Club, and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. In addition, he has been involved in Lafayette Leadership Education and finished third in the Barge team math competition last year.
Prashant Poddar ’04 worked on a research project to improve microwave antennas used in medicine as an EXCEL Scholar with William D. Jemison ’85, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.