![Doug Fankell](https://www.colorado.edu/mechanical/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/article-image/doug.jpg?itok=jH79limQ)
I am currently a fourth year Ph.D. student in Dr. Mark Rentschler’s Advanced Medical Technologies Laboratory. My current research consists primarily of developing a large deformation, thermo-poromechanics finite element model to simulate the heat transport, water transport and deformation of biological tissue when acted upon by outside forces.
Currently, my modeling efforts are being used to simulate the physics occurring during arterial tissue fusion. In the future, I plan to use my models to simulate a wide range of tissue-device interactions such as those seen during thermal ablation, implanted electronics and physical injury. Ultimately the goal is to allow surgeons and engineers to design safer more effective surgical devices and procedures.
In addition to my thesis work, I spent a summer as a computational physics fellow at Los Alamo National Laboratory where I worked to implement a super-time-stepping algorithm to simulate detonation shock dynamics and I immensely enjoy being the instructor for Graduate Design.
Outside of academia I fly fish and backpack as often as possible as well as play basketball, woodwork and read books on American history. After I graduate, I plan on continuing my research in academia as a post-doc or professor.