Paola Rioja

PhD Student

Mechanical Engineering

About

Paola is a graduate student in the Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Michigan, where she is a recipient of the Rackham Merit Fellowship and the GEM fellowship. She worked as a research engineer intern at Underwriters Laboratories Fire Safety Institute, she utilized a controlled atmosphere pyrolysis apparatus (CAPA), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis to characterize properties for fire dynamic simulations. As an undergraduate, Paola conducted electrophysiology research in the Yoon Laboratory, focusing on designing a juxtacellular rodent head-stage and validating spike-sorting algorithms. Furthermore, she contributed to the Wooldridge Combustion Laboratory, where she developed a droplet detection protocol for calibrating a novel in-situ spray impingement and fuel composition sensor. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D with research interests in human biomechanics, rehabilitation robotics, and exoskeletons.