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Research on Heart Function Wins Best Student Presentation Award at CMBBE

By Joanne Foote

Published June 1, 2023

Shruti Motiwale presents at the 2023 CMBBE Symposium. Credit: CMBBE

Shruti Motiwale, a fourth year graduate student at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences won the CMBBE 2023 Best Student Presentation Award at this year’s International Symposium on Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering (CMBBE), held in Paris, France, May 3-5. Motiwale is a student and researcher with the Institute’s Willerson Center for Cardiovascular Modeling and Simulation at The University of Texas at Austin.

Motiwale’s was the top presentation out of 120 student presentations at the symposium. “I was delighted to win this award! Winning an award at an international level while competing with a large and diverse pool of applicants validates the significance of my research work and has inspired me to bring this approach to the clinic faster,” said Motiwale. Her presentation titled “An approach for neural network finite element based high-speed high-fidelity cardiac simulations,” was given before an audience comprised of faculty, industry professionals, graduate students and post doctorates.

“I presented a novel approach capable of accurately predicting the mechanical behavior of the heart under various disease and treatment conditions for a patient-specific heart shape. Since each patient is unique and several factors need to be considered to identify the optimal treatment plan for every patient, computer simulations can help in optimizing the treatment. However, traditional simulation methods remain a limitation for this application due to their prohibitively slow speeds. By combining neural networks with finite elements, this approach has the potential to predict cardiac mechanical behavior in seconds and is the first practical approach that can assist doctors in making clinical decisions,” she explained.

By combining neural networks with finite elements, this approach has the potential to predict cardiac mechanical behavior in seconds and is the first practical approach that can assist doctors in making clinical decisions.

— Shruti Motiwale

Motiwale’s advisor, professor Michael Sacks, said Shruti is a very hard working, competitive, and self-motivated graduate student. “She was able to pick up on-going research work from previous projects very quickly and worked diligently to bring these projects to completion.” Sacks is the Director of the Oden Institute’s Willerson Center, and a professor of biomedical engineering at UT Austin.

“She has developed a robust mathematical model to describe the mechanical behavior of a gel-coated fibrous polymer material for replacement heart valves. For this research, she was awarded the Star Award for outstanding contributions to the field during the Society of Biomaterials’ 2021 Annual Meeting. Shruti is currently developing a neural network finite element surrogate model for rapid simulations of the heart and its valves. This is the work that she was awarded on at CMBBE. This surrogate model can generate simulation results within a few seconds without loss of accuracy as compared to traditional methods,” Sacks explained.

Sacks said this award shows Shruti has the potential to be an outstanding computational medicine scientist. “I can confidently say that Shruti’s abilities are within the top 3% of her peers that I have mentored over the past 30 years. This award represents a major form of recognition for Shruti. It will help inspire her to move faster in this area and advance her career in computational medicine.”

I can confidently say that Shruti’s abilities are within the top 3% of her peers that I have mentored over the past 30 years.

— Michael Sacks, Director of the Willerson Center for Cardiovascular Modeling and Simulation

Motiwale was also recently selected as a semi-finalist for the Frontera Computational Science Fellowship awarded by Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC). She was awarded $5000 as a travel grant and 26000 node hours on Frontera, the fastest academic supercomputer. Only ten semi-finalists were selected out of 114 applications nationwide. The fellowship was awarded for the same research presented at the CMBBE symposium.

Prior to attending UT Austin, Motiwale earned a Bachelor’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, a Master’s degree from Penn State and worked at Tesla Inc. for three years. Her plans include interest in a research-oriented career in the industry. “Regardless of where I work, I want to ensure that my work enables me to create a tangible positive impact on the society.”

The CMBBE Symposium originated in 1991. Through the years, the event has provided a platform for networking and sharing cutting edge research and projects related computer methods in biomechanics and biomedical engineering.