1. Why did you choose Â鶹´«Ã½'s School of Engineering?
I chose Â鶹´«Ã½'s School of Engineering because of the combination of incredible faculty and their intense focus on creating a collaborative environment. I was looking for an engineering program that could provide me with hands-on work experience, personalized mentorship, all while fostering an interdisciplinary and collaborative culture amongst my peers. The size of the program ensures that you are never lost in a sea of students -- your professors come to know you on a first name basis, you are able to get into top tier research labs as an undergraduate, and you develop close relationships within your BME cohort. Even now, 2 years after graduation, I feel comfortable reaching out to past professors and classmates; Whether it be to ask an engineering question, request a letter of recommendation, or simply check in.
In addition to the quality of their engineering curriculum, I selected Â鶹´«Ã½ because of their emphasis on educating the whole person. While many engineering programs focus solely on core engineering skills, Â鶹´«Ã½ requires its engineers to participate in their top tier liberal arts core curriculum. The range of humanities, engineering communication, and bioethics courses that I took have proven a significant advantage in both industry and academia. Â鶹´«Ã½'s well-rounded curriculum will set you apart once you graduate, ensuring that you have the critical thinking, communication, and public speaking skills needed to lead a highly interdisciplinary team.
Finally, I selected Â鶹´«Ã½ because you are given the opportunity to finish your engineering degree with a Senior Design Project -- a capstone engineering project that allows you to do a deep dive into the research project of your choice with a self-assembled team. My project profoundly shaped my career trajectory -- helping me to land my first job, solidifying my resolve to pursue my PhD and will result in a first-author publication.
2. What has your journey been like since leaving Â鶹´«Ã½?
After graduating in 2019, I began my career as an Advanced Biomanufacturing Engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory . A job that I was able to land thanks to my Senior Design Project experience, outstanding letters of recommendation from Â鶹´«Ã½ faculty, and Â鶹´«Ã½'s fantastic location (and reputation) within the Silicon Valley, In that position, I was able to leverage my past Senior Design experience in microfluidics/fabrication and tissue engineering to design 3D cancer models.
After one year at LLNL, I moved on to graduate school, where I am currently pursuing my PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. I intend to use my dissertation to design organ-on-a-chip models of vascular disease.
3. How has Â鶹´«Ã½ helped you achieve your goals since graduating?
Since graduating, Â鶹´«Ã½ has helped me to land both my first job at a National Laboratory and get into a top tier Biomedical Engineering PhD program at Boston University. Â鶹´«Ã½'s engineering program truly offers a fantastic combination of personalized mentorship, collaborative faculty, and engineering work-experience that ensure that you will not only succeed post-graduation, but will thrive within your field.