Eight senior biomedical engineering students from the University of Delaware recently presented their work at the Biomedical Engineering Society’s national annual conference held Oct. 13-15 in San Antonio, Texas. Half of those students were funded by a fellowship program launched by Assistant Professor Sonia Bansal, with financial support from the UD Advance Institute.
Student presentations included a variety of biomedical engineering topics, from orthopedic biomechanics to biorobotics to drug delivery and cell and tissue engineering. Participating students were Sharvari Apte, Catherine Clark, Alyssa Giordani, Shu-Jin Kust, Lauren Mottel, Manju Sivasankar, Katy Strand and Hayley Sussman. Clark, Kust, Mottel, Sivasankar and Strand are part of the new Summer Travel Award for Research Scholarship (STARS) program, which provided full expenses coverage for the conference as well as ongoing professional development mentoring.
Students said attending the conference provided invaluable networking opportunities and experiences as undergraduates.
“Where I am today is because of the mentors who invested in me simply because it was the right thing to do,” Bansal said. “It’s a no-brainer to create this opportunity for as many students as we can.”