Carla Nathaly Villacís Núñez

Nathaly Villacis is a mechanical engineer whose research focuses on elucidating the mechanisms of tear growth in rotator cuff tendons. As a MIDAS fellow, she plans to develop a machine learning model for early prediction of regions under high risk for tear propagation, using MRI-based full volume strain maps of intact and torn rotator cuff tendons. With this model, she also aims to elucidate why repairs have a high failure rate. Her ultimate goal is to incorporate this model into a digital twin pipeline to generate a clinically relevant tool that aids in surgical decision making.