Director, School of Engineering Graduate Program

Professor, Electrical & Biomedical Engineering

Office Address: 253 Kennedy Hall of Engineering
Phone: (616) 331-6267
Email: [email protected]

Field of Study: Electrical and Biomedical Engineering

Brief Biography:  Dr. Samhita Rhodes is the Director of the Engineering Graduate Program at Grand Valley State University.  Dr. Rhodes’ expertise is in biomedical signal modeling and advanced image processing techniques. Her collaborative work includes analysis of EEG and ECoG signals to model mechanisms of epilepsy with neurosurgeons at Spectrum Health, quantifying the benefits of power mobility training in children with multiple developmental disorders, applying image processing techniques to develop algorithms for CT image registration, and analyzing neural correlates of postural stability from EMG signals with researchers in the Biomechanics Performance Laboratory. As a recipient of an American Heart Association Scientist Development Grant, she has investigated advanced signal processing techniques to characterize cardiac dysthymias.

In 2010, Dr. Rhodes started the undergraduate minor in Biomedical Engineering. Together with Dr Farris, she was awarded $700,000 in NSF funding to develop a Master’s program in the same field. In 2019, under her leadership, the university approved a new undergraduate major in Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Rhodes teaches classes at all academic levels, undergraduate and graduate, in programming, mathematical modeling, and linear and nonlinear biomedical signal and image processing.

Dr. Rhodes has represented the Padnos College of Engineering and Computing on the University Academic Senate and Executive Committee of the Senate. She has also served as chair of the Integrated Engineering program and led the effort to redesign the freshman engineering curriculum. She served as the Assistant Director of the School of Engineering for 4 years where she started the Career Development Committee to support pre-tenure faculty, and the Student Success Initiative to coordinate retention efforts. She is an alumna of the prestigious Leadership Development Institute organized by the Higher Education Resource Services (HERS) in partnership with the Clare Boothe Luce program focusing on advancing women in STEM higher education.

Degrees: Dr. Rhodes has a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pune, India, and after earning her Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Marquette University, Wisconsin, she completed a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship in Anesthesiology Research at the Medical College of Wisconsin where she developed mathematical models to explore the effects of age and hyperthermia on cardiac function.