Skip to main content

UTEP Engineering Doctoral Student Paper Earns Editor’s Choice

Last Updated on March 22, 2021 at 4:00 PM

Originally published March 22, 2021

By Christina Rodriguez

UTEP Communications

Maryamsadat Shokrekhodaei, a doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering at The University of Texas at El Paso, received an Editor’s Choice Article recognition from Sensors, a leading international peer-reviewed open access journal on the science and technology of sensors, for her published research on glucose measurements for diabetic patients.

UTEP doctoral student Maryamsadat Shokrekhodaei.
UTEP doctoral student Maryamsadat Shokrekhodaei’s published research on glucose measurements for diabetic patients received an Editor’s Choice Article recognition from Sensors, a leading international peer-reviewed open access journal on the science and technology of sensors.

Editor’s Choice Articles are selected by editors-in-chief as noteworthy or likely to be of high interest to readers. These key papers highlight some of the best current research published in the online journal.

Shokrekhodaei’s published article “Review of Non-Invasive Glucose Sensing Techniques: Optical, Electrical and Breath Acetone” helps pave the way for non-invasive glucose monitoring in diabetic patients by presenting a multidisciplinary view of glucose measurement approaches. The review paper highlights the experimental and physiological challenges associated with each non-invasive method, possible solutions to overcome the challenges and recent advancements.

The UTEP doctoral researcher and teaching assistant’s dissertation focuses on physiological factors and how they affect glucose measurements. She is working toward designing a sensor that corrects for parameters that introduce errors to blood glucose measurements.

Shokrekhodaei’s research is based on hybrid machine learning methods that enable diabetes patients to accurately monitor and control their glucose levels in the future. The approach of the paper combines biomedical aspects with her electrical engineering background to engineering sensor design.

“Maryam is at the top of my list of students that I have been fortunate enough to mentor,” said Stella Quinones, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Metallurgical, Materials and Biomedical Engineering and UTEP Distinguished Teaching Professor and Freeport-McMoRan Distinguished Chair in Metallurgical Engineering. “She comes with a master's degree in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology, the top university in Iran, so was very well prepared for her doctoral studies at UTEP. The recognition of her work by the Sensors journal means that her research focus is relevant in the academic and industrial arena, and this is due in large part to her efforts to highlight the effect of many relevant and competing physiological factors on glucose sensor designs.”

Shokrekhodaei said her paper aims to include not only the engineering and experimental disciplines associated with non-invasive techniques, but also the relevant physiological and biochemistry theory related to blood glucose and other tissue components. She hopes that the multidisciplinary view in this paper can help readers connect the many factors that affect the accuracy of non-invasive blood glucose monitoring devices available for home use.

“I feel extremely honored and thrilled that our paper is recognized as an outstanding paper by one of the editors-in-chief for the Sensors journal,” Shokrekhodaei said. “I am very grateful for all of the guidance and support from my Ph.D. adviser, Dr. Quinones, my Ph.D. co-adviser, Dr. (Robert) Roberts, my Ph.D. committee members Drs. (David) Cistola and (Mahesh) Narayan, and my electrical and computer engineering adviser, Dr. (Miguel) Velez-Reyes.”