Sarmishtha Satpathy

University of Texas at Arlington

Nominator: Sarmishtha Satpathy

Nomination Questions:
In 250 words or less, describe why you first became interested in optics/photonics/physics. -
The honest answer is: since I was a kid- all of my favorite pastimes (and please remember that
this was pre-internet, pre-smartphones) involved light and optics: creating rainbows out of clear
plastic rulers, creating fire with lenses and microscopes, catching friends’ attention with reflections
from watches aimed creatively at them, blinking fast enough to see floating strands in your vision
(this was even more specific to my current research). I also enjoyed stargazing, and eclipses were
very highly anticipated events for me.
The simplicity, omnipresence and sheer power of optics was something that always attractive to
me.
More specific to my research I was stunned when I discovered what can be done to cells and
neurons with mere light, and the field of optogenetics in general. It was entirely new to me and it
enthralled me immensely to be able to manipulate microscopic building blocks of the human brain
with lasers and be able to see them talk and move almost instantly. Since then I’ve been working
almost exclusively on different ways of stimulating, controlling and detecting neural activity with
non toxic levels of light.
This work still excites me, and excites me enough that I find myself cheering for others'
breakthroughs as well!
In 250 words or less, how does optics play a role in your current position? - I look at neural
activity in an all optical manner- meaning that I interrogate neurons and other tissue with laser and
other light sources and detect the photons that have interacted with the sample. I also use
optognetics and other optical techniques (like NIR femtosecond laser stimulation). My job is
fundamentally based on optics and the ability to do more with few photons. As an Optical Scientist
at Openwater, I am part of a small, close knit team of scientists developing a pathbreaking new
device for medical imaging that uses optics and ultrasound to detect optical and mechanical
contrast in biological sample. This has to be done with great consideration to the absorption
spectra of light (which determines the exact wavelength in the near infrared range to be used to
maximize penetration and show enough contrast between oxygenated and deoxygenated blood)
as well as the optics for maximizing light collection and signal over noise. The laser used for the
illumination also needs to be very specific for this use. Everything from the illumination to delivery
of the light to the the holography and collection of light depends on optics.

The very basis of my job and research is to use light to make people's lives and health better.
In 250 words or less, identify the impact receiving this grant would have on your career. - While
it may not sound impressive enough, the biggest benefit from getting the grant will be validation of
my efforts as a scientist and engineer. While I constantly try and reaffirm to myself that I am
worthy of my title, my amazing job, and skilled enough not only to perform my duties, but to
innovate and do it even better, impostor syndrome is hard to shake, as most people with advanced
degrees might agree. It is especially true for a young profesional like myself. Getting this grant
would mean that some very erudite, respectable people in my field found my work promising and
that would spur me to work even harder and make it easier to do it with confidence. It also adds
credibility to my brand when speaking of myself to others. Being a WOC ECP unfortunately
comes with the occupational hazard of people not taking you seriously.
It is especially tough when you’re an international student turned profesional with a small network
compared to your peers. That was something that led me to joining profesional societies like OSA
and SPIE. Here I meet like minded individuals with common expertise and can express myself
better. This recognition from OSA would really mean a lot to me and would help me achieve my
goals faster. To have my name associated with this award and Dr. Kaminlow would be a huge
privilege and honor, and that, honestly, is THE prize for me here.
 SARMISHTHA SATPATHY
San Francisco, CA, USA

Education
• Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of Texas at Arlington (June 2014- December 2017)
• MS in Electrical Engineering at UT Arlington (Jan 2012-Dec 2013)
• BS in Applied Electronics & Instrumentation from SIT, Bhubaneswar, India (Aug 2007-Jun 2011)

Skills
Optics
• Microscopy, multimodal imaging
• Optical Coherence Tomography
• Fluorescence microscopy
• Calcium imaging
• Optogenetics
• Optical stimulation techniques
• CW/ Pulsed Lasers
• Galvanometric mirrors
• Optical fibers/ Fiber splicing
• Optical tweezers, optoporation
• NIR/ IR interferometry
• Spectroscopy
• Digital Holography
• Phase conjugation, Time reversal
Instruments/ software Electrical Engineering
• Electrophysiology (Whole cell • RF Circuit Design
patch clamp/ MEA) • Microwave Systems Engineering
• Camera (CCD, CMOS), • Embedded microcontrollers
Photodetectors • Clean room techniques:
• Function generator, Multimeter (Deposition, Etching,
• Spectrometer Photolithography, Sputtering,
Statistical Process Control, CPK)
• Oscilloscopes (Digital/Analog)
• Semiconductors
• AFM, TEM and SEM
• Fiber Optic Communication
• ImageJ
• Origin/Prism Cell Biology
• MS Office • Mammalian cell culture: HEK,
• Matlab, LabView Maintaining glial and neuronal
• SPICE simulation, Cadence, ADS cells, transgenic cells
• Transfection

Professional Experience

Sr. Optical Scientist: January 2018 – present

Open water Internet Inc,
San Francisco, CA- 94111
• Rapid prototyping responsibilities in lab for near-infrared systems for both phantoms and body tissue.
• Take from initial paper/whiteboard design, to more formal design and mockup evaluation, debug, and
refinement.
• Closely work with the other leads to support their efforts and assure rapid iterations of total system
performance with a wide variety of approaches to best overall architecture.
• Involved in core architecture of optical system to detect signals from tissue and conversion of lab benchtop
rig to a wearable form factor.
• Continuous system and design optimization to achieve better signal, in a compact form for tissue imaging.

Research Assistant: Jun 2014 – May 2017

Biophysics and Physiology Lab,
University of Texas, Arlington, TX 76013
• Thesis project: All optical stimulation and detection of cellular activity in mammalian neural networks
• Detected cellular activity in neurons by using PS-SDOCT
• Excited ReachR transfected cells using broadband excitation (application in vision restoration)
• Studied astrocyte and neuron communication using calcium imaging and electrophysiology
• Stimulated neurons optically using femtosecond IR pulsed laser
• Studied glioblastoma migration modes, and force exertion mechanisms using interferometric techniques
Publications and conferences:
• Published: ‘Label free detection of Action Potential in mammalian neurons’ by Subrata Batabyal,
Sarmishtha Satpathy, Loan Bui, Young-Tae Kim, Samarendra Mohanty, Robert Bachoo and Digant P.
Davé.
• Published: ‘Broad spectral excitation of opsin for enhanced stimulation of cells’, by Sarmishtha Satpathy,
Subrata Batabyal, Kamal R. Dhakal, John Lin, Young-Tae Kim, and Samarendra K. Mohanty in Optics
Letters. (2015 Jun 1; Volume 40, Issue 11).
• Under preparation: ‘Imaging femtosecond laser stimulated communication in astrocyte-neuron circuits’.
• Under preparation: ‘Force exertion mechanisms of glioblastoma under different migration modes’.
• Conferences: Presented on ‘Label free detection of cellular activity’ at SPIE Photonics West 2015, APS
March meeting 2015, ‘All optical detection of cellular activity using PS-SDOCT’ in SPIE Photonics West
2016, ‘Optical detection of action potential in mammalian neurons’ in SPIE Photonics West 2017.

Patents:
• Four patents pending with USPTO, with sole inventorship in one.

Awards:
• STEM scholarship awarded by UT Arlington (June 2014 – May 2017)
• SPIE Officer Travel Grant winner (2016).
• Awarded with the “Best Achievement Award” by S.I.T. for outstanding achievements at university and
state level (2011)
• 1 position in Governor-Chancellor’s Cup, 2011 (state level inter panel discussion)
st

• Best team in Regional Round-9th Dr. Mahbub ul Haq Memorial National Debate by UNICEF
• 1ST in State Level English Debate (on Renewable energy) organized by OREDA (2010, 2009)
• Gold Certificate (Distinction)-Green Olympiad by Govt. of India

Organizations and Leadership:

• Reviewer for multiple journals (Scientific Reports, Optics Letters,

• SPIE:
o Chaired conference session at SPIE Photonics West 2018 (10482 (BO202) - Optogenetics and
Optical Manipulation 2018)
o Chaired conference session at SPIE Photonics West 2019 (10866 (Session 3) - Optogenetics and
Optical Manipulation 2019)
o Facilitator at the 2019 SPIE Student Chapter Leadership Workshop in San Diego Optics +
Photonics 2019 conference
o Presented technical papers multiple times at SPIE Conferences.
o President of SPIE UTA chapter:
§ Volunteered at CAST outreach event for SPIE.
§ Planned and executed events, increased participation by members in Optics and Photonics
related events in and outside the state.
• OSA:
o Executive Officer for the Imaging Optics Design Technical Group
§ Responsible for group activities, organizing technical events and talks.
• SWE:
o Scholarship Chair of the Golden Gate Section (GGS) SWE.
• Secretary of Silicon Music Club (SIT, Bhubaneswar):
o Organized many inter and intra college level cultural events.
o Represented college at state and national level events.

Page 2 of 2
There were many paths I could have chosen, just like any other young, optimistic person. The
fact that I chose science and specifically, the science of light is something that makes me feel
immensely grateful for my younger self and whatever forces of universe that nudged me towards
it. I am very grateful for getting the opportunity to work in a field that is new and exciting and
do be gainfully employed in a job that can have a huge impact on people’s lives, and health.

My research has been mainly focused on different ways of stimulating, controlling and detecting
neural activity with non toxic levels of light. One of my papers was one of the first and only
papers that successfully demonstrates noninvasive label-free optical detection in mammalian
neurons without signal averaging or extraneous contrast agents. It succeeded in showing
optomechanical changes happening in neurons correlated to action potential propagation. This
has been the goal of many researchers because of its potential impact on our understanding of
neural communication, which will guide scientific developments in disease models,
neurodegeneration, treatments and neuroregeneration, recovery and healing.

Another paper discusses initial studies to demonstrate restoring vision in case of damaged retinal
cells without the use of prosthetics or artificial, intense, narrow band light sources but rather
ambient light (normal outdoors light) using optogenetic techniques by exploiting the broad
activation spectrum of a red shifted opsin (ReaChR). It shows promise for people suffering from
photodegenerative diseases like Retinitis Pigmentosa where some retinal cells lose their
functionality, leading to loss of vision.
In my current role as Staff Optical Scientist for Openwater, I work on design and development of
novel optical medical imaging devices. I am responsible for working with other team leads and
taking these innovations and design from whiteboard to tabletop to product.
I have four patents pending with USPTO (three non provisional, one provisional), with sole
inventorship in one. Our company received the Technology Pioneer award from the World
Economic Forum in July 2019 because of its high impact work.

It makes me realize that I am one of the more fortunate people who got the right mix of chance,
talent, support and mentorship to have made it as an optical engineer and scientist. I am also
aware of how it is sometimes more difficult for people from different backgrounds, races and
regions to establish themselves. That is why I am committed to the cause of diversity and
inclusion in STEM. I have offered and rendered my services as a reviewer for multiple
publications, chaired sessions at SPIE conferences, facilitated Leadership workshops for officers
from student chapters all around the globe for SPIE, and am also a part of the Equality, Diversity
and Inclusion Panel at SPIE. I also work as the Scholarship chair for the Golden Gate section of
Society of Women Engineers to encourage young women to get into STEM and to give them any
help or guidance that they need.

I hope I get more such opportunities in my profession to further others’ careers along with mine.
I truly respect this field and value it enough to welcome everyone in it with open arms and a
warm smile.

Sarmishtha Satpathy
As Sarmishtha’s advisor and mentor, I have worked closely with her on multiple projects
and can attest to her numerous skills in lab and research ranging from electrophysiology
to interferometry. Her primary project was to apply phase sensitive OCT to detect
electrical activity of neurons. She made important strides in understanding various
biological phenomena by employing optical tools. Her research unearthed and
confirmed some important findings on how neurons communicate and other mechanical
phenomenon coexisting with electro-chemical signaling. This was the first
demonstration of optical label free detection of action potentials in real time in
mammalian neurons, which has great significance for understanding the building blocks
of the nervous system, by making unfettered and unrestricted observation of neural
activity in individual neurons possible in real time.

She has also worked on studying communication between neurons and glial cells- cells
other than neurons that make up the majority of the nervous system, which have been
understudied. In order to do this, she created a co-culture of neurons and strategically
placed astrocytes using optical tweezers close to neurons to help form networks to
facilitate communication between neurons and astrocytes- a kind of signaling that has
not been deeply researched. Intra and inter-cellular calcium propagation was monitored
by using genetically-encoded calcium indicators enabled visualization of the
communication in this neuron-glioma circuitry which was stimulated by ultrafast
femtosecond laser beam for focal, non-contact, and repeated stimulation of single
glioma or neuron in the circuitry.

In another project she worked on identifying the movement process used by mutant
astrocytes for migration in microchannels, mimicking a 3D spatially confined micro-
environment seen in-vivo, by using low coherence interferometry. This project studied
glioblastoma cells in various functionalized and constrained environments to better
understand the effect of drugs. Her current work at Openwater is also an ambitious
undertaking in the achieving cheap, portable medical imaging by utilizing highly
innovative holographic methods. At Openwater, she has been a part of the core team
since the early months of the company and contributed significantly in the company’s
progress from a concept to R&D leading to a product.

In addition to contributing to such path breaking research, she has also been
instrumental in contributing to STEM and Optics development by lending her expertise
in reviewing technical papers and manuscripts for various journals, as well as taking
leadership roles like chairing sessions for one of the most widely attended Optics
conference in the world, being a facilitator at a leadership workshop organized by SPIE,
being an executive officer for the Imaging Optical Design Technical Group at OSA, and
the Scholarship Chair for the Society of Women Engineers Golden Gate Section. She
was also the President of the student chapter of SPIE at University of Texas at
Arlington, during the tenure of which she was awarded the Officer Travel Grant by SPIE.
I believe these speak highly of her determination and dedication to make STEM a better
space for everybody, not just directly via her scientific contributions but also by making
her highly specialized skills and experience available to the community to benefit.

As someone who has known her and worked with her, I strongly feel that she is a
researcher of great potential and would be a great candidate for this award.
 DATE: 12/01/2019

To:
OSA Committee for
Ivan P. Kaminow Outstanding Early Career Professional Prize

RE: Support for Dr. Sarmishtha Satpathy

I am writing to you today in support of Dr. Satpathy’s. Dr. Satpathy is recognized internationally
as being among the top in the field of endeavor, as demonstrated by her publications and
leadership roles as reviewer of journals and session-chair of international conference.

Currently, I am serving as Chief Scientific Officer of Nanoscope Technologies. As an inventor

and serial entrepreneur, I have successfully commercialized several products via Nanoscope
Instruments Inc. As president of Nanoscope Therapeutics Inc, I am leading the team for
advancing clinical development of optogenetic therapy for blindness due to retinal degeneration.
I also led clinical study of label-free cancer diagnostics and commercialization efforts. I worked
as a senior scientist in the Center for Advanced Technology in India, and also worked at various
laboratories in Germany, Italy, UK and Singapore. I received PhD in Physics from Indian
Institute of Science, and years of training at Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic at UC-
Irvine. I joined University of Texas at Arlington as an Assistant Professor in 2009 and my
research was funded by industry, as well as, National Institute of Health, National Science
Foundation and Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. I have authored and co-
authored over 200 journal publications and conference abstracts. My research has been
highlighted in hundreds of websites and magazines including New Scientists, Nature Photonics,
Wall Street Journal, Biophotonics, Laser Focus World, and OPN. I serve on editorial boards for
multiple journals (e.g., Nature-Scientific Reports) and have been chairing international
conference as part of Photonics West on Optogenetics and optical manipulation for several
years. I am the principal investigator of many major grants including National Eye Institute’s
R01-Audacious Goal Initiative grant and Bioengineering Research R01 grant.

Working in the field of Biomedical technologies for more than 18 years, I am well versed with the
contribution of Dr. Satpathy toward the field. Specifically, I obtained knowledge of Dr. Satpathy
and her work through collaborative work, which led to several key publications in leading
journals such as Optics Letters and Biomedical Optics Express. Further, by attending the
presentation by Dr. Satpathy at Optogenetics and optical manipulation conference, I learnt
about the advancement she made on label-free detection of neural activities during optogenetic
stimulation. Her talk was well attended and discussed by leaders in the field.

Dr. Satpathy demonstrated efficient stimulation of a light-sensitive opsin (ReachR) by

broadband (white) light using Patch clamp electrophysiology. This work was published in
“Optics Letters”, the most respected optics journal of Optical Society of America. Use of
broadband opsin has high importance in vision restoration in subjects with retinal degeneration
that occurs in diseases such as retinitis Pigmentosa, for which there is no cure. Furthermore,

NanoScope Technologies, LLC, 1312 Brown Trail, Bedford, TX 76022

www.nanoscopetech.com (817) 719-2692
high sensitive opsins provide better opportunities to modulate neural activities, which has huge
potential for managing neurological disorders such as chronic pain.

Dr. Satpathy has made seminal contribution by measuring single neuron activities in label-free
manner using optical interferometry with sub-nanometer sensitivity. She was able to measure
such neural activities using single-shot measurements without averaging. While she published
these results in highly respected journal Biomedical Optics Express, her international
recognition increased as demonstrated by citations of the paper and invitation she received to
serve as chair of session on Optical detection in the Optogenetics and optical manipulation
conference, held as part of Photonics west at San Francisco.

As President of University of Texas Arlington SPIE student chapter, Dr. Satpathy organized
technical events and received travel grant for attending leadership meetings. After obtaining
Ph.D., she got offer from OpenWater Founder and Technology pioneer Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen,
where she is working on advanced biomedical imaging technology to provide light based non-
invasive imaging of brain. The fact that she was selected to join the core group of scientists and
engineers to develop the technology at OpenWater demonstrates her extraordinary abilities.
She joined as an intern, then as a full time Sr. Optical Scientist and has now been promoted to
Staff Scientist, with vital contributions to the company’s success. She has made majorly
contributed towards the images we have shared online. She has filed four patent applications as
co-inventor, including one as a solo inventor. She has contributed to many improvements and
optimizations to the device design and has helped develop it from an idea to a lab rig to a more
portable form factor. She was amongst the first 10 employees of Open Water, which was
awarded the Technology Pioneer Award by the World Economic Forum in Dalian, in July 2019.

My review of Dr. Satpathy’s CV and work history points to the conclusion that she is among the
top new specialists in Biomedical imaging field. I know from personal experience that success in
this field demands unique and unusual combinations of knowledge and expertise spanning
numerous scientific and engineering disciplines. I can appreciate the value of expertise cutting
across several disciplines and I strongly believe Dr. Satpathy possess the combination of skills
necessary for success in developing new imaging modalities.

Due to extraordinary contribution to the biomedical engineering and photonics field, I have
invited Dr. Satpathy to review scientific papers in major journal, in which I serve as member of
the editorial board. Her critiques are very in-depth and provides guidance to authors to improve
on their work. I would like to summarize that Dr. Satpathy has demonstrated extraordinary ability
in the areas of biophotonics, biomedical sciences and engineering especially for label-free
imaging of neurons that can have long-lasting impact on photonics based medical imaging.

Sincerely,

Samarendra Mohanty, Ph.D.

E-mail: smohanty@nanoscopetech.com

NanoScope Technologies, LLC, 1312 Brown Trail, Bedford, TX 76022

www.nanoscopetech.com (817) 719-2692
References

Reference Affiliation Email Member Type

Digant Dave University of ddave@uta.edu Non-member
Texas at Arlington
Samarendra Nanoscope smohanty@nanos Non-member
Mohanty Technologies, LLC copetech.com