Dan Ahmad

Biomedical engineer, computational scientist, and project manager specializing in leading teams for creating drug development tools, microphysiological systems, and machine learning driven analysis of complex immunobiology. Architect of event-driven image analysis pipelines that replace manual quantification with reproducible, high-throughput measurement of immune cell trafficking, vascular barrier responses, and bacterial propagation in custom microphysiological/tissue-on-chip systems. Proven record of translating advanced research into deployable tools, publishing in peer-reviewed journals, and representing research programs at conference proceedings.

Lead Research Specialist at Translational Center for Barrier Microphysiological Systems (2025-11 – Present)

• Led development of automated image-analysis systems for tissue-on-chip measurements of immune cell trafficking and vascular responses to inflammation, owning computational tooling, system integration, biological design, and experimental execution.
• Architected and deployed multiple image-analysis pipelines on an event-driven, cloud-based architecture: users submit microscopy data to an intranet portal, a server reads metadata and dispatches the appropriate computer-vision analysis, producing high-throughput metrics that are impractical to measure manually (cell kinematics, transmigratory behavior, bacterial propagation, etc.).
• Built robust Python tooling for metadata extraction and image processing of proprietary microscopy formats, sustaining >90% ML pipeline accuracy versus human-tagged ground truth and saving hundreds of hours of manual analysis across lab projects.
• Coordinated with collaborating academic and industrial teams across institutions on joint project execution, technology transfer, and data sharing.
• Represented the laboratory at conferences and seminars, including presenting on behalf of the Principal Investigator.

Postdoctoral Associate at Translational Center for Barrier Microphysiological Systems (2024-03 – 2025-10)

• Led data analysis on a multimillion-dollar research grant studying the lung-to-brain inflammation axis for the BARDA DRIVe ImmuneChip+ program.
• Initiated the cloud-based, event-driven analysis platform later matured in the Lead Research Specialist role, cutting analysis time by over 95% versus prior manual workflows.
• Authored detailed technical protocols on a team responsible for technology transfer between institutions, reducing cross-institutional training time by several weeks.

PhD Researcher, McGrath Lab (Thesis) at University of Rochester (2019-09 – 2023-12)

• Computationally analyzed spatiotemporal profiles of leukocytes transmigrating across vascular endothelium in an in vitro sepsis mimetic.
• Performed iPSC culture, designed custom microfluidic devices, and wrote custom scripts and GUIs for data analysis.
• Published results in peer-reviewed journals and delivered an invited talk at an AI-in-medicine conference in Berlin, Germany.

Master's Student Thesis at University of Rochester (2018-05 – 2019-09)

• Designed custom microfluidic devices for membrane filter fouling analysis in Adobe Illustrator to maximize critical flux of silicon nitride membranes.
• Built a MATLAB GUI interfacing with pumps and pressure sensors to automate experiments.
• Developed a BeanShell-based imaging platform for environmental microplastic contamination analysis.

Undergraduate Research Assistant — Legacy Extragalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) at SUNY Geneseo (2015-06 – 2015-08)

• Performed ground-truth labeling of extragalactic entities using Hubble Space Telescope imaging data; results published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Geomatics Specialist at Eagleview (2017-01 – 2017-06)

• Verified accuracy and quality of aerial imagery using in-house software.
• Built image data libraries to customer specification based on purchased contracts.

PhD in Biomedical Engineering – University of Rochester

MS in Biomedical Engineering – University of Rochester

BA in Mathematics – State University of New York at Geneseo

BA in Physics – State University of New York at Geneseo