TAMEST Profile: Aaron T. Becker, Ph.D., University of Houston, TAMEST 2024 Protégé Poster Challenge Winner

This February, roboticist Aaron T. Becker, Ph.D., University of Houston (UH), was one of 42 TAMEST Protégés to participate in the annual TAMEST Protégé Poster Challenge, sponsored by Shell Global Solutions US. Dr. Becker was selected as a finalist along with three others and invited to present his research on stage at the conference.

Dr. Becker was awarded first prize for his poster presentation, Magnetic Milli-scale Robots for Blood Clot Removal. His prize included a gift card and complimentary ticket to attend the TAMEST 2025 Annual Conference: Transformational Breakthroughs. Dr. Becker and the other finalists also received an exclusive VIP breakfast session with TAMEST leadership and special guests, including The Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchison, TAMEST Honorary Chair; Former United States Senator; Former United States Ambassador to NATO, and Nobel Laureate Michael S. Brown, M.D. (NAM, NAS), UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Dr. Becker is an Associate Professor at the Cullen College of Engineering at UH and a senior member at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

TAMEST connected with Dr. Becker to learn more about his swarm robotics research and experience participating in TAMEST’s protégé program.

Please tell us a little about yourself and your work.  

I’m a roboticist at the University of Houston. My wife and I have four growing boys, two of which overtook me in height this year. We lived on campus as “faculty in residence” for four years, but we outgrew that space and moved into a real house this year that we sometimes call the Becker Fraternity. You can recognize it from the street because the trees in the front yard have more hammocks than is reasonable.

My lab focuses on controlling robotics by manipulating fields. This paradigm is flexible – my lab investigates clever ways for swarms of drones to accomplish tasks while remaining responsive to user input by modeling the interaction as a controllable field.

We have a project where underwater remotely-operated vehicles use magnetic fields to discreetly communicate and localize nearby robots while using magnetic fields to map and monitor undersea pipelines and cables.

Our lab is most famous for how we use magnetic fields to steer millimeter-sized robots to deliver medicine and to remove blood clots. Magnetic fields are an excellent tool for healthcare because they allow precision control of your working tool without requiring puncturing holes through the body or dragging a long catheter.

Our robotics YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/user/aabecker5. We have thousands of subscribers and over half a million video views. Our channel has short videos on most of our projects — and an entire semester of my Intro to Robotics course.

How did you first hear about TAMEST and its Protégé Program?

Kaushik Rajashekara, Ph.D. (NAE), University of Houston, is in my department and has given me a wealth of great counsel over the years. He and I presented back-to-back at the IEEE Eta Kappa Nu (IEEE-HKN) international meeting the University of Houston hosted, and he told me my lab’s robots would be an excellent fit for sharing at TAMEST.

Dr. Kaushik explained he attends the TAMEST conference every year he can because the meetings are consistently excellent. Dr. Kaushik apologized that he could only invite one protégé and had already made his invitation, so he contacted Dr. Donald Wilton because he is also a TAMEST member.

What made you decide to participate in our poster challenge? 

My mentor, TAMEST Member Donald Wilton, Ph.D. (NAE), University of Houston, told me to sign up for everything at TAMEST. He said the event was always top-notch and that I wouldn’t be disappointed as long as I tried each opportunity.

My students get to make posters every year, but I rarely get to – usually, professors give talks. The rules were intriguing – they stated the poster had to be smaller than 4’x6′ and couldn’t use a table. Colin Purrington has a guide on posters that I had always wanted to follow, so this was my chance.

While a traditional poster is static, the Houston Science Museum has displays that beg the visitor to touch, explore and learn. With those as guides, I used an iPad to show video, added an ‘actual size’ 3D printout of our robot, clamped on three poster lights to illuminate the display brightly, inserted a lift-the-flap section, and pinned an endoscope and a catheter with a vascular model to the display. My lab found me a printer where I could print two vertical posters that would fill the allocated space.

Your poster was titled “Magnetic Milli-scale Robots for Blood Clot Removal.” Tell us about your findings. 

Every year, 100,000 Americans die from pulmonary embolisms (blood clots in the lungs) and deep vein thrombosis (blood clots, usually in the legs). The standard of care is to either use blood thinners or to perform surgery. Both approaches have some drawbacks and are unsuited for segments of the population. Blood thinners are administered systemically, but the clot is at a particular point deep in the body with little to no blood flow. Using blood thinners is like pouring Draino down a toilet and hoping it diffuses into a blockage.

Surgery is typically performed with a catheter. Pushing a flexible hose accurately along twisting, branching blood vessels is difficult. Physicians need considerable training to snake their flexible tool to the correct point. We’d really like a tiny robot that can travel like a submarine to the clot, break it down into safe components, and then swim out of the body.

My lab has developed critical technologies toward this goal – we use a set of external electromagnets to power and steer a tiny 3D-printed submarine with a diamond-coated cutting tip. We call these tiny robot submarines’ “swimmers.” We shape our swimmers like a wood screw, and can rapidly produce patient-specific designs, depending on the desired intervention and clot type. These swimmers each contain a permanent magnet. Our swimmer aligns to magnetic north like a compass needle points toward the north pole. However, since electromagnets are on every side of the tiny swimmer, we can spin magnetic north wherever we want. Spinning the swimmer generates thrust.

We use ultrasound to track our swimmer as it swims to the clot location and then abrades it. Our tests on human blood in 3D models of the lungs or pig arteries have the fastest published results for removing clots with an untethered device. We use a specially designed catheter with a magnetic tip to insert and remove the submarine.

What makes you most passionate about your work?  

My team is a source of near-constant inspiration. They see the value of working on a significant problem facing humanity, which drives my team to improve. We’re fortunate to have talented surgical collaborators through our partnership with Houston Methodist Hospital, particularly, Dipan Shah, M.D., and Maham Rahimi, M.D. They daily help patients with blood clots and their experience helps them provide invaluable insights.

We’re also fortunate to live in a time with technology that enables us to prototype and implement new ideas quickly. Research Assistant Professor Julien Leclerc, Ph.D. has taught our robot arm to manipulate an ultrasound probe so we can track our swimmer as it swims in 3D, and my colleague Yitong Lu, Ph.D. has a way to insert (and remove) the swimmers using a medical catheter outfitted with a magnet that can be retracted with a thumb switch.

I love training new engineers and scientists. This summer, we have four interns performing research on our magnetic swimmers. The team includes two high school seniors, an undergraduate student from New Jersey, and a local high school teacher – my lab benefits from their enthusiasm and new ideas.

Finally, magnetic force still has a magical effect on me – when we accurately and quickly move our robot without touching it, this is better than science fiction! I’m reading Harry Potter IV to my boys at night. While I cannot “Accio” a broom to fly across the room, our magnetic swimmers can execute complex trajectories and loops, dart down narrow corridors and pierce blood clot blockages.

Talk about the research connections you made while attending the TAMEST conference and participating in the poster challenge. 

The TAMEST conference was an unparalleled opportunity to learn from experts. Academy members coached me on how to prepare for FDA device trials, what elements of our solution were best suited for patents, offered advice on using our technology for drug delivery and sensing and offered resources for imaging.

One of the key elements my lab is still looking for is a low-cost (used) Fluoroscopy Machine. Our system requires a tool that measures the robot’s position so that we can apply the proper magnetic field. We’re using an ultrasound transducer mounted on a robot arm to track our robot. Unfortunately, ultrasound doesn’t work well around the lungs because it can’t see through air pockets.

Instead, we want to use either a bi-planar fluoroscopy machine (two x-ray devices mounted at right angles so we can measure the 3D position of the robot) or a fluoroscopy machine mounted on a c-arm. We’ve imaged our device using fluoroscopy with a researcher we met at TAMEST, and the resolution is excellent, but our current grant doesn’t have funding for an imager.

As a finalist, you were able to present your research on our conference stage. What was that experience like? 

There is a nervous energy from speaking on a stage. TAMEST has a community of inventive, educated leaders, but their expertise is diverse. I’m used to talking to roboticists at robotics conferences, so ensuring our value proposition was clear kept me on my toes. TAMEST Vice President Ganesh Thakur, Ph.D. (NAE), University of Houston, coached me in explaining my lab’s innovations clearly and in plain language.

Many former TAMEST protégés have gone on to National Academy election. Did participating in this program help make that goal seem more attainable?

One highlight was the “Breakfast with Leaders” event, where the top four presenters had breakfast with Nobel Laureate Dr. Michael Brown (NAM, NAS), Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and the National Academy leader’s team. These Texans are so impressive, and yet they were humble and incredibly encouraging.

This group makes our state unique. They wanted to know where we were in our careers and what obstacles we were facing. You could feel their dedication to nurturing the next generation of researchers. Being worthy of national academy selection is a goal of mine and the TAMEST program provides a fertile, nurturing environment for growth.

What do you enjoy doing outside of your research? 

My wife and I have four growing boys, and we enjoy camping, gaming, singing and exploring together. Last summer, we returned from a sabbatical in central Germany, which allowed us to see a lot of Europe together.

My boys recently helped me build a Murphy bed (I told them it was like a transforming robot). This month, we went to our first auction and bought 10 semi-working bicycles, so this summer, we’re learning bicycle repair.