engineering

Rahul Sarpeshkar

Rahul Sarpeshkar is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Rahul Sarpeshkar rather than just read about it. In short: Rahul Sarpeshkar is the Thomas E. Kurtz Professor and a professor of engineering, professor of physics, professor of microbiology & immunology, and professor of molecular and systems biology at Dartmouth College.

Key takeaways

Rahul Sarpeshkar belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
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Connect Rahul Sarpeshkar to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Rahul Sarpeshkar from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Rahul Sarpeshkar is the Thomas E. Kurtz Professor and a professor of engineering, professor of physics, professor of microbiology & immunology, and professor of molecular and systems biology at Dartmouth College. Sarpeshkar, whose interdisciplinary work is in bioengineering, electrical engineering, quantum physics, and biophysics, is the inaugural chair of the William H. Neukom cluster of computational science, which focuses on analog, quantum, and biological computation. The clusters, designed by faculty from across the institution to address major global challenges, are part of President Philip Hanlon's vision for strengthening academic excellence at Dartmouth. Prior to Dartmouth, Sarpeshkar was a tenured professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and led the Analog Circuits and Biological Systems Group. He is now also a visiting scientist at MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics.

Research fields His research has contributed to the fields of:

Analog circuits and analog computation Molecular, systems, and synthetic biology Ultra-low-power and ultra-energy-efficient systems Energy-harvesting design Glucose-powered medical implants Bioelectronics Bio-inspired and biomimetic systems Cytomorphic (cell-inspired) systems Analog supercomputing systems Quantum and quantum-inspired analog computers Medical devices Cochlear implants Brain-machine interfaces Control theory

Research summary Sarpeshkar's recent TEDx talk 'Analog Supercomputers: From Quantum Atom to Living Body' summarizes some of his interdisciplinary research [1]. His research uses analog circuits and analog computation to architect innovations in bioengineering and synthetic biology, biological supercomputing, ultra energy efficient computing, and quantum computing. For example, by mapping log-domain analog electronic circuits to log-domain analog DNA-protein circuits in living cells [2], Professor Sarpeshkar's work in the May 2013 edition of Nature (doi: 10.1038/nature12148) pioneered the field of analog synthetic biology [3]. Three awarded patents and one pending patent of his have shown how to emulate quantum physics with classical analog circuits rigorously. He has used it to create quantum-inspired architectures that do spectrum analysis like the biological inner ear or cochlea, i.e., a 'Quantum Cochlea'. Professor Sarpeshkar's book [4] introduced a novel form of electronics termed Cytomorphic electronics, i.e., electronics inspired by cell biology [5]. It is based on the astounding similarity between the Boltzmann exponential equations of noisy molecular flux in chemical reactions and the Boltzmann exponential equations of noisy electron flow in transistors. Hence circuits in biology and chemistry can be mapped to circuits in electronics and vice versa. Therefore, this 'cytomorphic mapping' enables one to map analog electronic motifs to analog molecular circuit motifs in living cells as in the work in Nature and also to simulate large-scale feedback networks in cells with analog electronic supercomputers. Thus, his work has led to a novel and fundamental analog circuits approach to the fields of synthetic biology and systems biology, both of which are important in the future of biotechnology and medicine [6][7]. For example, the synthesis of biofuels, chemicals, energy, molecular and cellular sensors, network drug design, treatments for cancer, diabetes, auto-immune, infectious, and neural diseases can be impacted by his work on analog synthetic and systems biology. Sarpeshkar's work on glucose powered medical implants has been featured in the Economist, WIRED, and Science News and was highlighted by Scientific American among 2012's top scientific breakthroughs [8]. Professor Sarpeshkar's work on a hybrid analog-digital circuit that mimics feedback networks in the brain has appeared on the cover of the journal Nature and has received wide media attention [9]. His work on an ultra-low-power analog cochlear-implant processor for the deaf has had wide impact and been featured in articles in the New York Times [10], Technology Review, and IEEE Spectrum, as has his work on ultra-low-power brain-machine interfaces for the blind and paralyzed and for cardiac and non-invasive monitoring. His group holds several first and best world records in the fields of medical devices, medical electronics, ultra low power, analog, and bio-inspired design [11]. He has authored more than 139 technical publications and is an inventor on more than forty two awarded patents. He is the inventor of the RF Cochlea, a rapid radio-frequency spectrum analyzer inspired by the human ear [12]. His book Ultra Low Power Bioelectronics: Fundamentals, Biomedical Applications, and Bio-inspired Systems is published by Cambridge University Press and provides a broad and deep treatment of the fields of analog, ultra low power, biomedical, biological, energy-harvesting and bio-inspired design. It is based on a course that Sarpeshkar has taught at MIT for many years, which emphasizes how the universal language of analog circuits provides a pictorial and intuitive method for analyzing differential equations in physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, and medicine. He has won the Junior Bose award and the Ruth and Joel Spira award for excellence in teaching at MIT. Sarpeshkar has received several awards including the NSF Career Award, the ONR Young Investigator Award, the Packard Fellows Award, and the Indus Technovator Award. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems and serves on the program committees of several technical conferences. His recent TEDx talk 'Analog Supercomputers: From Quantum Atom to Living Body' summarizes some of his unique and interdisciplinary research [13]. His invited Google Tech talk at the 2011 Frontiers of Engineering Conference, hosted by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) summarizes his earlier work on an ultra low power programmable analog cochlear implant processor and other ultra-low-power implantable devices [14].

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rahul Sarpeshkar

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rahul Sarpeshkar claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Rahul Sarpeshkar before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Rahul Sarpeshkar ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Rahul Sarpeshkar

In research: Rahul Sarpeshkar appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Rahul Sarpeshkar in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Rahul Sarpeshkar is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century American physicists, American bioengineers, American electronics engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rahul Sarpeshkar outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Rahul Sarpeshkar in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rahul Sarpeshkar means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Rahul Sarpeshkar out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Rahul Sarpeshkar in simple terms?

Why does Rahul Sarpeshkar matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Rahul Sarpeshkar?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Rahul Sarpeshkar.