Soft Materials Mechanics Lab at the 2026 PANTHER & TBI Center Workshop

Members of the Soft Materials Mechanics Lab participated in the 2026 PANTHER & TBI Center Workshop, held September 15–16 at the Memorial Union at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. PANTHER (Physics-based Neutralization of Threats to Human Tissues and Organs), is a multi-university research program funded by the Office of Naval Research, that brings together researchers working to understand, detect, and prevent traumatic brain injury through physics-based approaches. The lab’s contributions included poster presentations by Ph.D. student Shovon, and Prof. Upadhyay.

Members from the Soft Materials Mechanics Lab along with members from Prof. Ravindran's MXMM lab. People in the frame (left to right): Albert, Mouliswar, Shovon, Prof. Upadhyay, Prof. Ravindran.

Participation and Contributions at the Poster Presentation

Shovon presented “Artificial Intelligence–Based Automated Neural Cell Phenotype Identification,” introducing an automated framework for identifying cell types in 2D and 3D fluorescence microscopy images of brain-cell cultures. Using interpretable statistical learning, the method enables accurate identification even with scarce datasets and substantial variation in image scale and magnification, substantially outperforming existing approaches, including black-box machine learning methods. This promises to reduce manual image-analysis demands and enable more consistent, high-throughput characterization across experiments, supporting studies of cellular responses to injury. His poster earned third place among 44 entries in the student and postdoctoral poster competition. Learn more about this project here.

Prof. Upadhyay and Shovon posing with Shovon's poster

Shovon receiving his award for the poster competition

Prof. Upadhyay presented a poster titled: “The Brain Remembers… Damage-Mediated Amplification of Deformation and Injury Risk under Repeated Head Impacts,” presenting research done by Carson (Master's student) , available as a preprint on arXiv. The work incorporates tissue softening, characterized through cyclic loading on human brain tissue, into head simulations to account for the effects of prior loading. Compared with models that omit this damage history, the models in this work predicted amplified strain, strain rate, and injury-risk estimates under repeated impacts. They also revealed regional differences that depend on loading direction, including distinct responses within brain folds and grooves.

Overall, these presentations highlight the lab’s ongoing efforts to better understand the complex mechanics of the brain tissue and its response during injury. The workshop was a valuable opportunity to share this work, exchange ideas, and connect with researchers working toward the same goal.