Dr Taye Tolu Mekonnen is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on advancing optical diagnostic technologies for biomedical imaging, inhalation drug delivery, and particle-surface interaction analysis.
Dr Mekonnen received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Macquarie University in 2020 as a recipient of the prestigious International Macquarie University Research Training Program (iMQRTP) Scholarship. Prior to his doctoral studies, he served as a Teaching Assistant and Lecturer at Jimma University, Ethiopia. During his PhD, he developed Multichannel Optical Coherence Tomography (MC-OCT), a pioneering high-speed imaging platform with applications in inhalation drug delivery and industrial inspection. He subsequently joined the University of Houston, USA, as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2021-2022), where he pioneered a reverberant optical coherence elastography (OCE) technique for high-resolution characterisation of tissue biomechanics.
Dr Mekonnen has authored several peer-reviewed publications, is an inventor on multiple patents in advanced OCT technologies. He is the recipient of the 2024 Drug Delivery to the Lungs (DDL) Career Development Award. His current research aims to advance next-generation imaging technologies that provide new insights into pharmaceutical aerosol transport, deposition, and tissue mechanics.
