Richa Pandey

Dr. Richa Pandey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Calgary's Schulich School of Engineering. She serves as a Full Member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute and is the Principal Investigator of the Wearable and Bio-integrated Technologies (WeBiT) Lab, where she also holds the UCalgary Research Excellence Chair position. Her work bridges biomedical engineering, digital health, and women's health applications.

Dr. Pandey earned her Ph.D. in Physical Electronics from Tel Aviv University in 2018. Her educational background provides the foundation for her interdisciplinary research that combines electronics, biomaterials, and medical applications.

Dr. Pandey's research focuses on developing innovative healthcare solutions with particular emphasis on women's health challenges including perinatal depression, preeclampsia, cervical cancer, and malaria in pregnancy. Her laboratory specializes in three interconnected research pillars: wearable biosensors for continuous health monitoring, point-of-care diagnostic technologies for decentralized testing, and bioreceptor discovery for enhanced detection systems. These technologies are designed to be accessible, particularly in low-resource settings, addressing significant health inequities through engineering solutions. Her work integrates biology, engineering, and digital health to create medical technologies that are both effective and user-friendly.

Analysis of Dr. Pandey's recent publications reveals a strong focus on electrochemical and photoelectrochemical biosensing platforms, with particular emphasis on nucleic acid-based detection systems. Her research spans multiple application areas including infectious disease diagnostics (particularly for SARS-CoV-2), cancer biomarker detection, environmental monitoring, and neurotransmitter sensing. The consistent theme across her work is the development of rapid, sensitive, and field-deployable diagnostic technologies that minimize sample preparation requirements while maintaining high analytical performance.

• Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellowship, Marie Sklodowska Curie Association
• Excellence Award, Marian Gertner Institute for Medical Nanosystems
• Food Security Fellowship, Manna Center for Food Safety and Security

Dr. Pandey actively mentors federally and provincially funded students and postdoctoral fellows in her laboratory. Her educational philosophy emphasizes hands-on learning and application of engineering principles to medical challenges. She participates in outreach initiatives that inspire underrepresented groups to pursue engineering careers. Her collaborative approach includes partnerships with clinicians, industry experts, and global health organizations to ensure her research translates into practical, impactful healthcare solutions. Dr. Pandey also teaches multiple courses including BMEN 388 Signals, Systems and Instrumentation I, BMEN 585 Guest Lecture on Point of Care Diagnostics, BMEN 600 Biomedical Engineering Foundations, and BMEN 468 Engineering Design for Biomedical Engineering.

The Wearable and Bio-integrated Technologies (WeBiT) Lab serves as the hub for Dr. Pandey's research activities. The laboratory houses federally funded instruments and highly skilled personnel dedicated to developing cutting-edge medical devices. The lab's vision focuses on creating disruptive technologies to engineer health solutions through a multidisciplinary and translational approach. Current projects include Revolutionizing real-time health monitoring through wearable biosensors, Making diagnostics accessible through point-of-care technologies, and developing the foundation of smart sensing through bioreceptor discovery and design.