Alex Kouprine

Alex Kouprine’s keen interest in nano- and microfabrication brought him to HMRI in March 2011. In the Biomedical Engineering Lab he is fabricating unique HMRI designed micro-electrodes for special neurological applications. The multi-stepped fabrication process is similar to that of semiconductor microchips and is conducted in a controlled cleanroom environment. Micro-electrodes are delicate, high-aspect ratio micro-devices that can be implanted in the brain to treat neurological disorders, such as hearing loss, Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord injury.

Kouprine received his MS and PhD degrees in Physics from Moscow State University (MSU). From 1989 – 2002, at MSU, McGill University, and UC San Diego, he was developing state of the art experimental high-sensitivity characterization techniques to investigate novel materials and physical processes in condensed matter. He studied on a nano-scale non-conventional materials that showed promise for information storage and energy conversion for six years at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and UC Davis jointly with the University of Washington at Seattle (UW). While at Radiabeam Technologies in 2010, he worked on an exploratory project aimed to tailor artificial heterostructured material on sub-micron scale with nanometer precision.