Vedika Venkataraman

Vedika Venkataraman

Biography

Vedika Venkataramanan is a rising junior studying Biomedical Engineering at the Lampe Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with concentrations in pharmacoengineering and biosignals and imaging and a minor in Spanish. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, she is a Park Scholar and Abrams Scholar conducting research at the UNC School of Medicine, where she develops machine learning–based pipelines for the early diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder using resting-state fMRI. As an HHMI SURP Fellow, Vedika conducted research in the Cheng Lab at UCSF, investigating INO80–nucleosome interaction mechanisms in Saccharomyces cerevisiae to characterize conformational changes underlying chromatin remodeling processes implicated in cancer, neurological disorders, and age-related disease. Her broader research interests center on neurodegenerative disease, particularly leveraging electroacoustic mechanisms to inform early-intervention strategies such as deep brain stimulation for cortical atrophy following hearing loss. Beyond the lab, Vedika is passionate about improving healthcare access for marginalized populations, especially within clinical research. She leads the NC State chapter of Carolina Adapts Toys for Children (CATCH), where she develops adaptive toys to expand accessible play for children with disabilities. She also leads a team designing a recreational device for children with symbrachydactyly to play on the monkey bars. She recently founded CorSentra, a cardiac wearable focused on reducing the risk of sudden cardiac death in Type II diabetics. Vedika aspires to pursue a JD-PhD and work at the intersection of therapeutic development, neurodegenerative disease, and health policy, shaping how biomedical technologies are designed, deployed, and regulated, while explicitly accounting for sociocultural barriers that influence access to and outcomes of care.