Google Scholar Profile

Education
• PhD Bioengineering, California Institute of Technology, 2010
• MSc Aeronautics, California Institute of Technology, 2005
• BSc Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of Washington, 2004

Research Description
As lead of the Bioinspiration Lab, Kakani and her group investigates ways that imaging can enable observations of life in the deep sea. By developing novel imaging and illumination tools (e.g., DeepPIV and EyeRIS), automating the classification of underwater visual data using artificial intelligence (FathomNet), and integrating algorithms on vehicles (ML-Tracking) for robotic vehicle missions (e.g., Mesobot, LRAUV) to consistently and persistently observe ocean life, their efforts will increase access to biology and related phenomena in the deep sea. If successful, the Bioinspiration Lab hopes to spark collaborative research and engineering innovations inspired by poorly understood inhabitants living in the least explored habitat on our planet.