Dmitry Kireev is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and a member of the Center for Personalized Health Monitoring in IALS.
IALS: Hi Dmitry, thank you for speaking with us today. We have a few questions for you so everyone on campus can get to know you better. How long have you been at UMass Amherst?
DK: This is my 2nd month at UMass Amherst. I've started in September 2023. And these were perhaps the most exhaustive but also exciting few months of my life!
IALS: Where did you grow up?
DK: I was born and grew up in a tiny town in Russia, where I was educated up to high school, after which I moved to Moscow for my BSc.
IALS: Does the love of science run in your family?
DK: I would not say so. I am the only one to go beyond the BSc/MSc degree in my family. My parents both have "Specialist" degrees (the equivalent of BSc/MSc), with my father then working most of his life as an electrical/energy engineer in a factory and my mother as a primary school teacher.
IALS: How long have you been teaching?
DK: Considering teaching a whole class, being responsible for the whole course and syllabus - approximately 2 months :) Before that, my job was primarily to do research, which I've accompanied with mentorship and invited guest lectures.
IALS: What is more stressful, grant proposals, research, or teaching?
DK: I guess everything is at this point! Eventually, I see these three connected, as grants are needed to hire students to perform the research, to generate new knowledge, to teach the newly generated knowledge to the students, and repeat the cycle -> getting more grants based on the new knowledge to hire the newly educated students to perform more exciting research. But this open-endedness of science is what attracted me to the professorship. There is no room to rest; there is often no perfect/correct answer; there are solutions, but then there are always better solutions. There are always many ideas to pursue and novel projects and excitement. Translating the ideas and excitement into tangible funding ($$$) to make them happen is undoubtedly the challenge, but it is the reality of any research-active professor at any stage.
IALS: Assuming your research is widely successful, how will it impact society?
DK: Shortly - a better version of the steampunk-looking future, where machinery is integrated with the human body. We now know that hard, stiff, rigid electronics does not integrate well with soft, elastic, living human tissue; hence, such integration is not feasible... Unless we make the electronics smaller, thinner, and, notably - flexible, soft, and tissue-like. This is precisely the focus of my work - creating bioelectronic devices capable of morphing with human tissue for a long time and engineering imperceptible bioelectronic interfaces. The long-term impacts cover a variety of biomedical applications such as brain implants and neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, etc.); limb prosthetics, neuroprosthetics, and cardiac pacemakers that would be implanted once and for life; skin-like imperceptible wearables for chronic monitoring of vital signs, and many more Healthcare applications. Creating bioelectronic hybrid computing elements that work like biological neurons is another impactful project that would eventually lead to the creation of biologically-inspired computers that could also be easily implanted and morphed with the human brain, creating some sort of human cyborgs.
IALS: Who do you admire and why?
DK: I would say postdoc advisor - Deji Akinwande - for his approach to science, research, education, and life in general. He combines the best qualities of a highly prolific academic and a humble, kind, and emphatic human. Over the years, I've learned from him directly and indirectly.
IALS: What are your interests when you are not a scientist?
DK: I do homebrew beer, which is a lot of fun (besides drinking it). It is an exciting process in itself, and I think it is very well-fitting for a scientific mind. Plus, there is an interesting similarity between beer brewing and doing experiments - you follow the recipes to create something new, occasionally changing the parameters, hoping to create something better. I always experiment with my recipes.
IALS: Thank you so much Dmitry.