About

David O'Neill is a Professor of Instruction in Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University, with a background in general engineering and extensive teaching experience. He earned his DPhil and MEng in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford, UK, in 2012 and 2008 respectively, and also holds LLCM in Conducting from the London College of Music, University of West London, UK, obtained in 2018. His research interests include modeling heat transfer and cell death in the liver during radiofrequency ablation, as well as developing prototype medical devices for respiratory gas analysis through collaborative efforts across multiple departments. Throughout his academic career, he has taught undergraduate tutorials at Oxford and currently focuses on curriculum development at Northwestern, emphasizing mastery-based grading schemes, vertical curricula, and increased synopticism in biomedical engineering education. He works closely with colleagues such as Prof Casey Ankeny in pedagogical research and course development.

Research topics

• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Human–computer interaction
• Architectural engineering
• Engineering management
• Data science
• Multimedia

Selected publications

• Becoming Biomedical Faculty: A Longitudinal Analysis of Successful Academic Career Aspirants’ Career Perspectives, Motivations, and Intentions

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-05-21

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Seismic shifts within academia over the last several decades have seen the growth of biomedical PhD recipients alongside the relative stagnation of tenure-track research-intensive faculty careers (RIFCs). This hypercompetitive academic job market has prompted interest in the paths of those who attain RIFCs. Understanding what drives recent biomedical PhDs to make their career decisions and persist toward them requires a clear picture of how career perceptions, motivations, and intentions develop and crystallize over time. Using annual in-depth interviews across nearly two decades, this report explores the evolution of career thinking and differentiation among 40 who attained a RIFC from diverse starting points to their attainment of a RIFC. Participants’ strategies for navigating early scientific experiences were patterned by their varied educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. Nearly half of participants did not start with or maintain stable interest in RIFCs, exhibiting changes in both PhD and postdoctoral phases. Participants highlighted six ‘drivers’ toward RIFCs including desire for independence/autonomy and contributing to knowledge/health. Our results are instructive for trainees and mentors guiding career exploration and differentiation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Becoming Biomedical Faculty: An Analysis of Credentials among Successful Academic Career Aspirants

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-05-21

  articleOpen access

  Understanding what is requisite for attaining a biomedical faculty career is crucial for guiding trainees preparing for these roles. For nearly two decades, we have collected accounts of biomedical training and career transitions from a large cohort through annual in-depth interviews and tracking of competencies and achievements. This paper elucidates the common and varied credentials of 40 who entered research-intensive faculty careers (RIFCs). Participants completed PhDs and postdocs in a range of research-intensive institutional settings. Developing research independence and a niche were essential to RIFC attainment, and mentors played a crucial role in this development. Counter to common assumptions, high-prestige publications and grants were not in and of themselves necessary for RIFC attainment. Our findings can aid RIFC aspirants and mentors who guide them.

  PublisherDOI

• Comparing Implicit and Explicit measurements of Engineering and Research Science Identities in Engineering Doctoral Students

  2025-08-21

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Post-Pandemic Motivations and Barriers for Office Hours Attendance in Biomedical Engineering

  2025-08-21

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Dissecting environmental effects with eccentric gravitational wave sources

  ArXiv.org · 2025-06-10

  preprintOpen access

  We model the effect of resonances between time-varying perturbative forces and the epi-cyclical motion of eccentric binaries in the gravitational wave (GW) driven regime. These induce secular drifts in the orbital elements which are reflected in a dephasing of the binary's GW signal, derived here systematically. The resulting dephasing prescriptions showcase a much richer phenomenology with respect to typically adopted power-laws, and are better able to model realistic environmental effects (EE). The most important consequences are for gas embedded binaries, which we analyse in detail with a series of analytical calculations, numerical experiments and a curated set of hydrodynamical simulations for equal masses. Even in these simplified tests, we find the surprising result that dephasing caused by epi-cyclical resonances dominate over expectations based on smoothed or orbit averaged gas drag models in GW signals that retain mild eccentricity in the detector band ($e> 0.05$). We discuss how dissecting GW dephasing in its component Fourier modes can be used to probe the coupling of binaries with their surrounding environment in unprecedented detail.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• WIP: Mapping Faculty Opinions of Student Skills Development in a Large-scale First-Year Design Program

  2025-08-21

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Hyperpolarized ¹³C‐MRS can Quantify Lactate Production and Oxidative PDH Flux in Murine Skeletal Muscle During Exercise

  NMR in Biomedicine · 2025-04-02 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT Existing techniques for the non‐invasive in vivo study of dynamic changes in skeletal muscle metabolism are subject to several limitations, for example, poor signal‐to‐noise ratios which result in long scan times and low temporal resolution. Hyperpolarized [1‐ 13 C]pyruvate magnetic resonance spectroscopy (HP‐MRS) allows the real‐time visualization of in vivo metabolic processes and has been used extensively to study cardiac metabolism, but has not resolved oxidative phosphorylation in contracting skeletal muscle. Combining HP‐MRS with an in vivo muscle hindlimb electrical stimulation protocol that modelled voluntary exercise to exhaustion allows the simultaneous real‐time assessment of both metabolism and function. The aim of this work was to validate the sensitivity of the method by assessing pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) flux in resting vs. working muscle: measuring the production of bicarbonate (H 13 CO 3 − ), a byproduct of the PDH‐catalysed conversion of [1‐ 13 C]pyruvate to acetyl‐CoA. Mice ( n = 6) underwent two hyperpolarized [1‐ 13 C]pyruvate injections with 13 C MR spectra obtained from the gastrocnemius muscle to measure conversion of pyruvate to lactate and bicarbonate, one before the stimulation protocol with the muscle in a resting state and one during the stimulation protocol. The muscle force generated during stimulation was also measured, and 13 C MRS undertaken at a point of ~50% fatigue. We observed an increase in the bicarbonate/pyruvate ratio by a factor of ~1.5×, in the lactate/pyruvate ratio of ~2.7×, together with an increase in total carbon (~1.5×) that we attribute to perfusion. This demonstrates profound differences in metabolism between the resting and exercising states. These data therefore serve as preliminary evidence that hyperpolarized 13 C MRS is an effective in vivo probe of PDH flux in exercising skeletal muscle and could be used in future studies to examine changes in muscle metabolism in states of disease and altered nutrition.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Work in Progress: Exploring Qualifying Exam Experiences in Engineering Doctoral Students using Well-Being Constructs

  2025-08-21

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Gaseous Dynamical Friction on Hyperbolic Scatterings

  ArXiv.org · 2025-05-26

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We present a study of equal-mass hyperbolic encounters, embedded in a uniform gaseous medium. Using linear perturbation theory, we calculate the density wakes excited by these perturbers and compute the resulting forces exerted on them by the gas. We compute the changes to orbital energy, orbital angular momentum and apsidal precession across a wide range of eccentrities and pericenter Mach numbers. We identify six distinct classes of hyperbolic orbits, differing through their wake structure and subsequent orbital evolution. We find the gas to always dissipate orbital energy, leading to smaller semi-major axes and higher pericenter Mach numbers. The orbital angular momentum can either increase or decrease, whereas we typically find the orbital eccentricity to be damped, promoting supersonic gas-captures. Additionally, we find that the force exerted by the gas is not strictly frictional -- particularly for asymptotically subsonic trajectories. Therefore, despite the orbit-integrated changes to orbital parameters being similar to those predicted by the \cite{O99} prescription, the time evolution of the density wakes and the instantaneous forces exerted on the perturbers are significantly different.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• WIP: Effectiveness of Different Reflection Approaches for Improving Mastery in an Engineering Laboratory Course

  2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings · 2024-02-20 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Providing students with detailed, descriptive feedback and having them reflect on what they have learned can foster self-directed learning (Ambrose, 2013); a critical ability for future engineers whom need to be able to translate their skills and knowledge to novel situations (Bary & Rees, 2016). Standards-based grading (SBG) has been slowly emerging in the engineering education field as a way to provide students with feedback on how well they are meeting course objectives (Carberry, et. al., 2016). This grading approach contrasts traditional summative based grading which only shows students what they got incorrect and fails to provide assessment of the learning objectives with which they struggle. Our previous research investigated SBG implementation to evaluate lab reports in engineering lab-based courses and identified student weaknesses in two standards: problem identification and interpretation (to be added after review, 2020). Work demonstrating improved SBG value with structured reflection (Diefes-Dux & Castro, 2018) motivates us to leverage reflection in developing students' metacognition with the ultimate goal of improving mastery in their weaknesses. For scientists and engineers, laboratory and design notebooks record a project from its start to completion. When done well, these notebooks are an inherently reflective practice on one's own learning, understanding, and decision-making process (Svarosvsky & Shaffer, 2006). We hypothesize that reflection, especially if done while learning (e.g. lab notebooks) in addition to reflection after receiving SBG feedback, will improve mastery in "problem identification" and "interpretation" as well as result in favorable student attitude about SBG and reflective practices. We will test our hypothesis in an introductory experimental design lab course for sophomore Biomedical Engineering students. This course runs twice a year and enrolls ~25 students per offering. In the winter quarter of 2021 (WQ21), we will assign students lab reports (as previously implemented) and add individual structured reflections of their SBG feedback. Students will reflect on what they have learned, areas in which they want to improve, and specific actions they plan to take to improve in those areas (Diefes-Dux, 2016). In addition to the assigned assessments from WQ, students enrolled in SQ21 will be asked to maintain a laboratory notebook. The students will record and reflect on steps taken during the lab, mistakes made, how they fixed their mistakes, etc.—a reflection on their learning while doing. We plan to determine if there are differences in mastery (quantified by SBG of lab reports) across different reflection implementations (no reflection, SQ20; post-assignment reflection, WQ21; reflection while doing + post-assignment reflection, SQ21). In addition, we will assess attitude adapted from Carberry, et. al., 2013, engagement with the process of reflection and SBG based on Diefes-Dux & Castro, 2019, and the quality of reflections similar to Menekse, et. al., 2011 across terms with different reflection approaches. This study will provide insight into how the integration of reflection (i.e. post-assessment vs during assessment) affects mastery of standards, quality of student reflections, and student attitude toward SBG. Ultimately, providing engineering students' optimized opportunities to reflect on their learning may aid their development as self-directed learners.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Casey Ankeny

  New College

  61 shared

• Amy N. Adkins

  North Carolina State University

  50 shared

• Stephen J. Payne

  National Taiwan University

  12 shared

• Tingying Peng

  Helmholtz Zentrum München

  11 shared

• John A. Kennedy

  Rambam Health Care Campus

  7 shared

• John D. McArthur

  Western Infirmary

  6 shared

• Peter A. Robbins

  University of Oxford

  5 shared

• Luca Ciaffoni

  University of Oxford

  3 shared

Labs

• Northwestern Center for Engineering Education ResearchPI