Welcome

Welcome

It is a pleasure to welcome you to the 31st Spring Biomedical Engineering Symposium, the signature event of our Harrington Bioengineering Program and the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering (SBHSE). Here, our graduating class of bioengineering seniors and Master’s students of the class of 2021, as well as our undergraduates of the class of 2022, anxiously look forward to meeting you and presenting their exciting design and applied research projects. After listening to their presentations, we hope you agree that the impressive health care technology innovations proudly displayed by our biomedical engineering students suggest that they are well on their way to address the ever pressing and challenging unmet clinical needs throughout the world in the 21^st Century.

We in SBHSE and the Fulton Schools of Engineering recognize the urgent need for developing an adept, innovative and entrepreneurial health care technology workforce for the MedTech Industry in Arizona and the world could not be greater in the 21st Century. The innovations witnessed herein of our Bioengineering students are a testimonial to the unyielding leadership support throughout ASU, our external advisory boards, and community partners. Moreover, the accomplishments of our students witnessed in this symposium would not be possible without the continued support of our dedicated biomedical engineering instructors, entrepreneurial clinical, industry and independent mentors, judges, graduate teaching assistants, facilitators, and professional staff. We sincerely thank all of you for contributing your time and expertise toward achieving this common goal.

We continue to be fortunate in having an ever-expanding BME community of partners who, year in and year out, tirelessly support the development of the next generation of biomedical engineering researchers, design thinkers, product developers and innovators equipped with state-of-the-art skill sets, an entrepreneurial mindset and a rich and deepening culture of innovation at ASU. Now in its 7th consecutive year as the #1 leading culture of innovation in US universities, ASU continues to fuel the rapidly emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem in Arizona. At ASU, the culture of innovation within SBHSE’s longstanding biomedical engineering program continues to fuel its next generation of health care technology leaders to tackle even the most pressing of grand challenges in health care delivery in the 21st Century. Clear evidence of SBHSE’s entrepreneurial capacity building of the 21st Century workforce in health care technology is the continued fury of successes acclaimed by our biomedical engineering design teams in taking top honors in local, regional, national and international design competitions and the rapidly increasing number of patents filed, as well as the emergence of start-ups now becoming a reality.

SBHSE is also very proud to once again host a group of senior engineering Master Card Foundation Scholars from our global partner, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), in Kumasi, Ghana. Now, in its fourth year, KNUST engineering students spend their senior year and also their graduate masters studies at ASU, albeit this year it is necessarily a virtual experience but nonetheless enriches our program. In Biomedical Engineering, KNUST scholars further expand our diverse, multinational capstone teams and applied project cohort. The rich diversity that KNUST and all our international BME students continue to bring a unique and enriching global perspective as witnessed at this symposium and evidenced throughout our SBHSE program.

Lastly, now in its third year, SBHSE growing CBIG partnership with Creighton University’s third and fourth year entrepreneurial medical students, undergoing rotations at Dignity Health in Phoenix, who take precious time from their very busy clinical schedules to identify clinical unmet needs and serve as clinical mentors for this year’s SBHSE capstone design teams. These exceptional medical students continue to do an outstanding job mentoring our BME senior design students as evidenced by the quality of their innovative capstone projects. With the newly institutionalized ASU-Creighton University partnership now in place, SBHSE looks forward to expand our collective vision based upon our early success with this unique model to our evolving BME medical device global health innovation program.

On behalf of our BME student presenters and our dedicated staff and faculty, along with our affiliated colleagues and our clinical and industrial partners of the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering (SBHSE), we proudly present the Class of 2021 biomedical engineering innovators and their understudies at our all virtual and 30^th continuous biannual biomedical engineering symposium. Please ‘drop in’ from wherever you may be and join us in celebrating SBHSE’s Class of 2021 and their outstanding achievements. Do enjoy our 31st Spring BME Symposium!