Christopher Hartemink

Education

* PhD in Medical and Mechanical Engineering, MIT and Harvard Medical School, 2004

* MS in Mechanical Engineering, MIT, 1999

* BS in Mechanical Engineering, Calvin College, 1996

* BS in Physics with a math minor, Calvin College, 1996

Professor Hartemink graduated from Calvin with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a BS in Physics in 1996, with a minor in math. He completed his MS in Mechanical Engineering in 1999 at MIT, and then joined the joint MIT-HMS Health Sciences and Technology program for his PhD. During that time he worked on protein structural mechanics, using electron microscopy and cell culturing to study how the actin cytoskeleton provides stability to cells being sheared by blood.

Biography

After completing his PhD in 2004, Professor Hartemink moved to St. Paul MN to join Guidant Corporation, where he did research on heart failure, a condition where the heart weakens as a pump until a patient becomes immobile and eventually passes away. He worked with physicians to quantify the electromechanics of a beating heart in order to predict patient prognosis and response to pacing therapy.

In 2006 Guidant was acquired by Boston Scientific, and Professor Hartemink moved into product design engineering. He developed systems that pace the heart for slow heart rates, systems that synchronize the heart for weak heart beats, and systems that shock the heart for lethally fast heart rates. He also developed a first-in-man neurostimulation system to treat heart failure (still in clinical trials), as well as a variety of other products like implantable cardiac monitors, advanced ablation catheters, and advanced mapping catheters.

His roles included investigation of physician needs, development of product specifications, hazard analysis, risk stratification, bench testing, animal studies, human studies, and FDA submissions.

Academic interests

* biomedical engineering (medical device design)

* thermodynamics, heat transfer, and fluids

* the cognitive science of teaching and learning

* calling, vocation, engineering, and faith