Kai Abitbol-Pierce

Kai Abitbol-Pierce earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering, with a minor in Computer Science, from Case Western Reserve University before joining Rice University as a Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering. In the lab, he leads the microfabrication of thin-film neural devices, working toward a circumferential spinal cord device to bypass spinal cord injury.

His path into the field came through two converging threads. An electrical engineering co-op at the Cleveland VA Medical Center — where he developed a smart wheelchair footplate sensor system to prevent lower-extremity injuries in individuals with paraplegia — first drew him into spinal cord injury, while an NSF-sponsored REU at the University of Michigan, investigating nanoscale textures to improve the optical properties of aerogels, introduced him to microfabrication. He has also analyzed neural data from a Parkinson’s disease study as an undergraduate research assistant at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute, served as a teaching assistant for the introductory circuits laboratory, and led an undergraduate engineering team designing a low-cost medical device for low-resource settings.

When he’s not in the cleanroom, Kai enjoys playing guitar and taking care of his plants.