Since a young age, Dr. Mustafa Unal has been fascinated with engineering and its ability to provide innovative solutions to real-world problems. Despite being born into a modest family in southeastern Turkey, Dr. Unal worked tirelessly to pursue interdisciplinary studies and dedicate his academic career to understanding the factors leading to bone fragility and the development of new clinical tools for early diagnosis of orthopaedic diseases.
Combining his engineering background with his interest in human anatomy, Dr. Unal obtained his M.Sc in Mechanical Engineering (Biomechanics) at the University of Texas at San Antonio and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (Biomechanics) at the Case Western Reserve University, where his specific passion for science led him to develop a new method that nondestructively assesses the hydration status of bone and cartilage. By developing a dedicated Raman Spectroscopy (RS), laser-based vibrational spectroscopy, researchers are now able to better understand different water compartments in bone and cartilage. Looking to further his impact, Dr. Unal joined the Department of Orthopedic Surgery of Vanderbilt University Medical Center as a Post-doctoral researcher under the supervision of Dr. Jeffry S. Nyman and worked as an affiliated postdoctoral researcher at Vanderbilt Biophotonics Center (VBC), led by Prof. Anita Mahadevan-Jansen. Therein, he contributed to the research towards transferring RS into the clinics. His research is at the intersection of biomechanical engineering, orthopedics, and biomedical spectroscopy development. He returned to his home country (Turkey) and started his own professional academic career in 2020. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Karamanoglu Mehmetbey University. As a leader in the field, he has dedicated his efforts to more than academic success by overcoming the limitations of current clinical tools and developing new devices to improve the lives of patients around the world.
