BME,undergrad News

May 10, 2009

Duke graduates 523 engineers in May 2009

Duke University awarded degrees to 523 undergraduate and graduate engineering students on May 10 in ceremonies beginning with a university-wide commencement celebration in Wallace Wade Stadium and ending with a Pratt School of Engineering ceremony in Duke Chapel. Pratt Dean Tom Katsouleas Bachelor of Science in Engineering diplomas to 279 students, including 12 who completed their work in December and one last September, before a crowd of parents, relatives and friends in the Chapel. Pratt also awarded ...

November 10, 2008

Duke Engineering Contest Connects U.S. Students with National Problems

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering challenges college students in the U.S. to create a video and an essay in response to this question: Which of the 14 grand challenges identified by the National Academy of Engineering would you choose to address, and how would you do it? The National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges (http://www.engineeringchallenges.org) has identified 14 critical barriers to a sustainable way of life. They represent problems that will require ...

August 13, 2008

Doku Named Fulbright Scholar

Stesha Doku, a biomedical engineering student who graduated in the spring, has been named as a Fulbright Scholar, making her the second Pratt student to receive this award this year. The program supports one year of research at an institution outside the United States. Doku, a Charlotte, N.C. native, will begin her Fulbright research at the University of New South Wales, Australia, in the summer of 2009, after completing her first year of medical school at ...

August 6, 2008

Sometimes the Simplest Things Make the Biggest Difference

By Richard Merritt For Annette Lauber, one of morning’s seemingly simplest routines was often a moment of anxiety. She has cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that effects muscle movement and coordination. She can walk for short periods of time with the aid of crutches, but she finds her wheelchair to be a more efficient tool to use throughout the day. And while working full time for 30 years for the state of North Carolina, the last 15 ...

June 19, 2008

Smart Home Gets Top Environmental Building Score

Residence hall/laboratory receives state's first platinum LEED rating DURHAM, NC -- The Home Depot Smart Home at Duke University, a 10-person student residence hall for green living and learning, has achieved a top-level platinum standard for its design from the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED rating system. The building becomes the first in North Carolina to achieve that standard. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The 6,000-square foot-residence, designed by students and advisers, earned 59 ...

May 19, 2008

Lee Pearson Commencement Speech 2008

Welcome mothers and happy Mother's Day, thank you for all that you do. Welcome fathers thanks for your part in making Mother's Day possible. Welcome Pratt Class of 2008. It has been a long road and we have reached the end of this journey in what seems like much less time than anticipated. Although our parents were certainly focused on getting to the destination on time and on budget, we were more focused on what interesting ...

May 8, 2008

Gift to Drive Better Understanding of Uncertainty Analysis

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering has received a gift of $5 million from an anonymous donor to establish a new undergraduate curriculum that will encourage students to think critically about problems that lack obvious solutions, like those they will encounter after graduation, President Richard H. Brodhead announced Wednesday. The planned curriculum will be open to undergraduates from all majors. “Duke’s strategic plan, ‘Making a Difference,’ calls for investments in programs that help students ...

April 2, 2008

Three Duke Students Awarded Goldwater Scholarships

DURHAM, N.C. -- Three Duke University students have been selected for Goldwater Scholarships in science, mathematics and engineering for the 2008-09 academic year.They were among 321 sophomores and juniors chosen on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,035 mathematics, science and engineering students nationwide. Three of Duke’s four nominees were selected. The award provides up to $7,500 toward annual tuition and expenses. Duke’s Goldwater Scholars are Mark Hallen, Nicholas Patrick and engineering student Daniel ...

March 25, 2008

Living on $2 a Day

When the severe drought in North Carolina precluded his scheduled monsoon rainwater project, Bob Malkin was forced to devise an alternative experience for his Design for the Developing World course. In an attempt to simulate on the personal level the experience of poverty, he asked his students to live on $2 a day, just as billions of people around the world do. While the costs of lodging, heat and other utilities were not included in the ...

December 17, 2007

Duke Undergraduate Entrepreneurs in Action

Ideas that included promoting childrens books for African-Americans and creation of a cooperative kitchen for low-income single mothers were among the student presentations Dec. 6 at the Undergraduate Entrepreneurs Pitch Session, part of the University’s inaugural Entrepreneurship Week. Six groups of undergraduate entrepreneurs made presentations before a large audience and a panel of venture capitalists and other professional entrepreneurs, including Chris Kroeger, partner of The Aurora Funds, which co-sponsored the event; Bonny Moellenbrock, director of SJF ...

November 5, 2007

Why Engineers Make Good Business People

Note: The following represents a speech presented by Sy Sternberg, chairman and CEO of New York Life Insurance Co., at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering on Saturday, Nov. 3, during Parents Weekend. Sternberg is an engineer by education, with bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering. Download his power point slides. It’s great to be here this week with so many other Duke parents. My son, Matthew, has just entered his senior year at ...

October 3, 2007

Why Women Succeed

Note: The following article, written by Sally Hicks, first appeared in the Fall '07 issue of Gist from the Mill, a publication of the Social Science Research Institute at Duke University. When Nan Jokerst studied engineering in the 1980s, being a woman meant being surrounded by men. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, says Jokerst, the J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke. “I had more dates than anybody. If you want ...

October 1, 2007

Pratt Pair Wins YouTube Contest

Watch Laura Moore and Lisa Richard's video "Shedding Light on Breast Cancer," which highlights their research done as Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellows. Two seniors in the Pratt School of Engineering have won the Duke University prize in a national YouTube video competition. Laura Moore (BME '08) and Lisa Richards (BME '08) produced a three-minute film about a research project that is using specially filtered light to improve breast cancer detection and measurement. Both students have been working ...

October 1, 2007

In New Position, Lawrence Boyd to Boost Student Entrepreneurship at Duke

Lawrence Boyd teaches a new course called Introduction to Business and Technology-Based Companies. Three days after completing his doctoral work in biomedical engineering, Lawrence Boyd got started in a completely new role, as associate director of Duke's Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization (CERC). The position was created with funding support from several departments and programs across the university in an effort to boost student entrepreneurship at Duke. Founded and directed by Biomedical Engineering Professor Barry Myers, ...

October 1, 2007

Duke’s Smart Home – Finally A Reality

An illustration of the Home Depot Smart Home. After almost five years of plans, the dorm has finally become a reality. After almost five years of plans, dreams, fundraising and ultimately construction, Duke’s new smart home will be finished in November. Ten Pratt engineers and Trinity students anticipate moving into the Home Depot Smart Home in January—prepared to become Duke’s newest ambassadors of E-Living. Their goal is to seamlessly integrate technology into the home and champion ...

September 19, 2007

As Founder of Shoeboxed.com, Recent Grad Starts a 'Consumer Revolution'

The Shoeboxed logo. As an undergraduate, Taylor Mingos ('07) was the first student at the Pratt School of Engineering to officially participate in the Duke-in-Berlin program's special engineering option, in which students take an intensive year of German and enroll in engineering-related courses at the Technical University of Berlin. Immediately after graduating with a triple major in electrical engineering, biomedical engineering and German studies, he led a diverse team of 16 back to the vibrant European ...

September 19, 2007

A Summer of Engagement

Student members of the Duke Engineers Without Borders (EWB) chapter took part in three projects over the past summer—all designed to improve the quality of life for people living in Uganda and Peru. Meanwhile, Engineering World Health (EWH), an organization founded by the Pratt School of Engineering's Robert Malkin, took more than 40 students to Tanzania and Central America to install or repair medical equipment in local clinics and hospitals. "It gives me great pride that ...

September 1, 2007

Back to School and Time to Think about Next Summer

Kirsten Shaw In the midst of settling back into campus life and a new course schedule, it's already time to start thinking about next summer's internship or full-time job, says Kirsten Shaw, assistant director of Corporate and Industry Relations at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. The good news is that there are plenty of resources available on campus to get undergraduates prepared. The first stop should be an appointment with the Career Center, where students can get ...

July 27, 2007

Underwater Robot Competition Proved a 'Rollercoaster Ride' for Duke Robotics Club

The 10th annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle competition held in San Diego, Calif., from July 11-15 proved a "rollercoaster ride" for student members of the Duke Robotics Club. While early indications suggested that their newly designed robot, named Scylla, had a shot at landing in the top three, a series of operational failures ultimately forced the team to forfeit the competition before their second qualifying run. "In the end, this competition served as a reminder that ...

June 1, 2007

Commencement Speech: Benjamin Schaefer Abram

Sunday, May 13, 2007 Inspired by Hurricane Katrina, Ben Abram looked for lessons in historical records related to past floods as a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow. For the last four years, every graduate in this room has been solving engineering problems. None of us here escaped circuit diagramming—whether in physics alone, for us Civils and Environmentals, or in Dr. (Rhett) George’s EE 148 for Mechanicals, or by way of the Hotchkin-Hucksley for the Biomedicals, or twice a ...

May 1, 2007

CUREs Winner Tackles Cervical Cancer in Haiti and Around the World

The winning CUREs team with EWH founder Robert Malkin. The winning team of the second annual Duke-Engineering World Health CUREs non-profit business competition has developed a device to help catch cervical cancer early in women of developing countries. The low-cost device called a cerviScope might also hold promise for use in industrialized countries, including the U.S., according to Duke physicians familiar with the new cancer-screening instrument. "Our ambition is to save the lives of 19,000 women in ...

April 1, 2007

From Aquifers to Goo, Event Encourages Girls’ Interest in Science and Engineering

Students build a model aquifer in an activity led by Pratt Professor Helen Hsu-Kim and Nicholas Professor Heather Stapleton. At the end of February, 160 local fourth through sixth grade girls spent their Saturdays at Duke exploring science with a creative twist, including topics ranging from the pollution of groundwater in underground aquifers to the chemistry of goo. The event marked the second annual Females Excelling More in Math, Engineering and Science (FEMMES) organized by Duke junior ...

April 1, 2007

Duke's First Engineers Week Draws a Crowd

Duke's first campus-wide Engineers Week celebration, offering a week-long series of events for both Pratt and Trinity students, proved a big success. The week's grand finale, an E-social loaded with contests and competitions that pitted "Team Pratt" against "Team Trinity," drew more than 500 students to the engineering campus. Watch the video on YouTube. The festivities were kicked off with a week-long clothing drive competition between departments for the Durham Rescue Mission. Tuesday featured guest speaker ...

April 1, 2007

Pratt Dean: The U.S. Needs More Women and Minorities in Engineering

Dean Kristina M. Johnson of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering told an International Women’s Day audience March 8 that the nation needs more women and minorities in engineering so they will be able to help solve some of the increasingly complex challenges she said the world will face in years ahead. “Simply put, unless we bring more women and minorities into science and engineering fields, we will not have the intellectual capital to address the global ...

March 27, 2007

Off-Road Wheelchair Pioneer and Designer to Speak April 2

John Davis, off-road wheelchair racing champion and pioneer, and John Castelano, his wheelchair designer, will speak at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering on Monday, April 2. The talk begins at 4:00 p.m. in the Nello L. Teer Building, room 203, and is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the parking garage next to the Bryan Center. Davis is expected to discuss his experience as an outdoors enthusiast—an avid surfer and mountain biker—who ...

March 27, 2007

Off-Road Wheelchair Pioneer and Designer to Speak April 2

March 1, 2007

Civic Engagement to Become Integral to a Duke Undergraduate Education

A destroyed house in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans remained virtually untouched months after Katrina's devastation. A DukeEngage pilot program will send 20 students to the New Orleans area this summer to help in the ongoing rebuilding effort (see sidebar). In one of the most ambitious efforts of its kind in U.S. higher education, Duke University will make civic engagement an integral part of its undergraduate experience beginning in 2008, university president Richard H. Brodhead ...

March 1, 2007

Taking Advice from Alumni

Natalie Wisniewski, a Pratt alumna and medical device consultant On Feb. 9, Pratt school alums offered advice to current students at two different forums. Natalie Wisniewski, a medical device consultant who obtained her doctorate in biomedical engineering in Professor Monte Reichert's lab, spoke at a Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) event on enhancing personal innovation and problem solving. Later in the day, John Glushik, a venture capitalist who obtained his bachelor's in mechanical engineering from ...

March 1, 2007

How to Catch a Monsoon

Using a fire hose, BME seniors test devices they built to catch monsoon rain. Duke undergraduates in the biomedical engineering capstone course "Design for the Developing World" tested devices they designed and built to catch monsoon rainwater. The devices, each built with no more than $20 worth of parts from The Home Depot, were tested Feb. 15 with simulated monsoon rains delivered by fire hose on the Engineering Quadrangle. “In some parts of the world, if a ...

January 1, 2007

BME Students Built $40 Insulin Pump, Handsfree Computer Mouse

Kelly Fitzgerald and Patrick Parish with $40 insulin pump. Biomedical engineering students in BME 264, the biomedical instrumentation course taught by Associate Professor Patrick Wolf, capped off another semester with poster presentations of their inventions on Dec. 12. Kelly Fitzgerald and Patrick Parish presented a $40 insulin pump. By stripping the pump down to its bare essentials, such a device could offer those with diabetes who are unable to afford a $6,000 commercially available pump the advantage ...

December 1, 2006

Industry Internship Survey Results

More than 330 Duke engineering students took part in a survey on summer internships earlier this fall. According to the survey results, more than 61% of students who completed an internship reported their experience as 'excellent' or 'good' and 82% received compensation for their time. At right are charts that provide detailed information on student majors, gender and types of internships. Internships give students a chance to network with role models and potential employers and see ...

December 1, 2006

BME Undergrads Make Skating Wheelchair for Hockey Fan, Other Devices for Disabled

Kuppy Sampale, Eric Blatt and Keigo Kawaji demonstrate their ice skating wheelchair. A wheelchair on ice is just one of several novel prototypes that biomedical engineering undergraduates presented during a Nov. 2 demonstration of projects designed for the capstone course BME 260: Devices for People with Disabilities. “It really feels like you’re gliding or ice skating when you are using the chair,” said Kuppy Sampale, one of the wheelchair’s engineers. A three-member student team created the adapted wheelchair--complete ...

December 1, 2006

Upper-Class E-Team Members Advise Freshmen Engineers on Course Loads

First-year engineering students get advice about course registration from senior E-Teamer Toby Kraus. First-year engineering majors got some valuable advice on their spring semester course loads from upper-class members of the student mentoring group known as E-Team on Nov. 7. Freshmen gathered over slices of pizza to hash out their schedules with student representatives of each of the four engineering departments in the Fitzpatrick Center atrium. “Biomedical engineering is a difficult major,” said senior Toby Kraus, a ...

December 1, 2006

Reassurance, Advice and Laughs at 2006 Engineering Parents’ Weekend

Brook Byers Brook Byers, a venture capitalist and Pratt parent, kicked off the 2006 Parents' Weekend seminar and barbeque by soothing parents’ fears that their child wouldn't get a good job. He described five hot technology areas, and gave seniors advice on how to choose their first position. His presentation to the crowd of 600 parents and students Oct. 27 was followed by an interactive panel of four Duke engineering seniors who provided their own take on ...

November 1, 2006

Pratt In Focus - Recruitment Event

More than 185 prospective high school students and family members hailing from Durham to California gathered on Saturday, Oct. 21, at the first "Pratt in Focus" to meet engineering professors and undergraduates and learn more about engineering at Duke. More than 60 Pratt students volunteered their time at the day-long engineering recruiting event by leading tours, staffing tables at the student activities fair, explaining their Pratt Fellows research projects and talking one on one with prospective ...

November 1, 2006

The Home Depot Sponsors Duke Smart Home

Imagine a college dormitory that touts more audiovisual equipment than most theaters, runs on electricity generated by solar panels and is protected with biometric security. This unique living experience will become a reality for 10 students of Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. The university and The Home Depot are partnering to create “The Home Depot smarthome,” a residential laboratory where students will research and develop innovative solutions for the home in areas such as security and ...

October 24, 2006

Duke Announces Construction of “The Home Depot Smart Home,” A Live-in Laboratory Where Students Test Residential Technology

DURHAM, N.C. -- Imagine a college dormitory that touts more audiovisual equipment than most theaters, runs on electricity generated by solar panels and is protected with biometric security. This unique living experience will become a reality for 10 students of Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering.The university and The Home Depot are partnering to create “The Home Depot Smart Home,” a residential laboratory where students will research and develop innovative solutions for the home in ...

July 18, 2006

Student-Built Reaching Assist Device for 7-Year-Old Wins RESNA Award

A custom-built reaching assist device developed and built by a team of students at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering won an award at the design competition of the Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) in Atlanta. The students created the device -- called “BRAD” for Biomimetic Reaching Assist Device -- for a 7-year-old boy with TAR syndrome. The condition is characterized by skeletal abnormalities including the absence of portions of both arms. The student ...

June 23, 2006

Fulbright Sends Mugler to Study Brain-Machine Interface in Germany

Emily Mugler, who graduated last month from Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, has won a 2006 Fulbright Scholarship to study neuroscience in southwestern Germany. The award will take her to the Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology at the Eberhard Karls University of Tuebingen for up to 12 months of research and study. Mugler , a former Pratt Research Fellow, will explore the brain-machine interface in the lab of Niels Birbaumer. She will focus on the ...

June 1, 2006

Pratt School Celebrates Graduation of Class of 2006

Ian Kazi Shakil receives the Pratt School of Engineering Student Service Award from Associate Dean Linda Franzoni Duke University awarded degrees to 346 undergraduate and graduate engineering students on May 14 in ceremonies beginning with a university-wide commencement celebration in Wallace Wade Stadium and ending with a Pratt School of Engineering ceremony in Duke Chapel. Pratt Dean Kristina M. Johnson presented Bachelor of Science in Engineering diplomas to 244 students, including 12 who completed their work in ...

April 23, 2006

Duke Student's Idea For Treating Jaundice In Newborns Could Impact Millions In Developing World

PhotoGenesis launches as a not-for-profit after winning Duke student business plan competition DURHAM, N.C. – A team led by Duke University engineering graduate student Vijay Anand has developed an affordable LED-based jaundice treatment for newborns that will cost roughly 95 percent less than currently available technology. The technology, called Photogenesis, won the $100,000 Duke University Engineering World Health CUREs competition. Anand will receive an executive salary and one year of incubation in Duke’s Pratt School of ...

April 18, 2006

Duke Student Entrepreneurs To Compete for Start Up Funds

DURHAM, N.C. –- Physicians who have struggled for years to monitor and treat the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa could soon have a low-cost solution thanks to a team of students at Duke University. These students, and others with unique ideas to improve health care technology in developing countries, are vying for the top prize in a Duke University business plan competition Saturday. The student business named Global ImmunoDiagnostics has developed what its organizers believe is a ...

January 1, 2006

BME Seniors Expand Design Skill, Open Doors for People with Disabilities

Another crop of biomedical engineering seniors at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering expanded their design skills while helping individuals with physical and developmental disabilities last semester. Their design projects -- the culmination of the elective capstone course BME 260: Devices for People with Disabilities -- ranged from a guitar strummer for a teenager with limited use of his right side to a tailored exercise machine for a woman with cerebral palsy. The undergraduates showed off their ...

September 27, 2005

Duke Engineering Program Improves Hospital Conditions in Developing Countries

Durham, N.C. -- Duke engineering student Le (Lucy) He was stunned to discover that the lights in the operating room of her adopted Rosales, El Salvador, hospital flickered off and on during the day. Similarly, upon her first visit to the hospital, she saw patients in beds everywhere but few working monitors hooked up to them. Lucy He is one of five Duke University students who have returned to campus from a challenging and rewarding summer ...

June 1, 2005

Duke Awards 300 Engineering Degrees

Duke University and its Pratt School of Engineering awarded degrees to 300 undergraduate and graduate engineering students May 15 in a series of ceremonies starting with a university-wide commencement celebration in Wallace Wade Stadium and winding up with an inspiring ceremony in Duke Chapel. Dean Kristina Johnson Pratt Dean Kristina M. Johnson presented Bachelor of Science in Engineering diplomas to 237 students, including eight who completed their work in December and six last September, before a standing-room-only ...

May 1, 2005

Diekman Receives Fulbright to Study in Ireland

Pratt senior Brian Diekman has been selected to receive a 2005 Fulbright Scholarship from the Irish Fulbright Commission. The award will provide Diekman support for up to 12 months of research and coursework at the National University of Ireland in Galway. Diekman, from West Lafayette, Ind., is majoring in biomedical engineering with a minor in religion, and will graduate in May. He is the second Pratt student to receive a Fulbright this spring. It was announced last ...

April 13, 2005

Diekman Receives Fulbright Scholarship in Ireland

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University student Brian Diekman has been selected to receive a 2005 Fulbright Scholarship from the Irish Fulbright Commission. The award will provide Diekman support for up to 12 months of research and coursework at the National University of Ireland in Galway. Diekman, from West Lafayette, Ind., is majoring in biomedical engineering with a minor in religion, and will graduate next month. The Irish Fulbright Commission provides 12 postgraduate Fulbright Awards for U.S. citizens ...

April 1, 2005

Hwang Wins Goldwater Scholarship

(l-r)Adam Chandler, William Hwang, Peter Blair William (Billy) Hwang, a junior majoring in biomedical engineering, physics, and electrical and computer engineering, is one of three Duke students awarded Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships for their achievements in the sciences, mathematics or engineering. In addition to Hwang, who is from Potomac, Md., this year's winners are Peter Q. Blair, a junior from Chicago who is majoring in mathematics and physics; and Adam Chandler, a junior from Burlington, N.C., majoring ...

March 31, 2005

Hwang Wins Goldwater Scholarship

William (Billy) Hwang, a junior majoring in biomedical engineering, physics, and electrical and computer engineering, is one of three Duke students awarded Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships for their achievements in the sciences, mathematics or engineering. In addition to Hwang, who is from Potomac, Md., this year's winners are Peter Q. Blair, a junior from Chicago who is majoring in mathematics and physics; and Adam Chandler, a junior from Burlington, N.C., majoring in mathematics and chemistry. They ...

January 1, 2005

Pratt Senior Tyler Brown Killed in Traffic Accident

Tyler Brown, a Duke senior engineering student who recently went to help rebuild tsunami-ravaged Sumatra, was killed in San Francisco Oct. 9 when the taxicab in which he was riding was hit by a pickup truck. The driver of the pickup was allegedly drunk and has been charged with two counts of vehicular manslaughter and one count of felony drunken driving. Brown and the driver of the taxi were both killed instantly. Michael Giedgowd, a Trinity ...

December 1, 2004

Engineering Program Helps Latin Hospitals

Marquette student Jennifer Wozniczka (left) and Duke student Lucy He testing a defibrillator in Rosales, Nicaragua using a board designed and build by Engineering World Health students. Duke engineering student Le (Lucy) He was stunned to discover that the lights in the operating room of her adopted Rosales, El Salvador, hospital flickered off and on during the day. Similarly, upon her first visit to the hospital, she saw patients in beds everywhere but few working monitors ...

April 1, 2004

Pratt Alumnus Wins Soros Fellowship

Pavan Cheruvu, a 2001 Pratt alumnus and Rhodes Scholar, has won a 2004 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans and will enter the Health Science and Technology program of Harvard University and MIT in September. Cheruvu, a triple major at Duke in electrical and biomedical engineering and chemistry, is currently pursuing M.S. degrees in Neuroscience and Computer Science at Oxford University. He was among 30 2004 recipients of the Soros Fellowships selected from 1,300 applicants. ...

April 1, 2004

National Awards Honor Student Inventors of Devices to Help People with Disablilities

What does a tricycle, an envelop stuffer and a neck brace have in common? These are technologies that won national awards for three student teams at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. The devices were created as part of a biomedical engineering course called Devices for People with Disabilities. The team of twins Shin Yeu Ong and Shin Rong Ong, and the team of Diana Hsu and Elizabeth Strautin Schwartz tied for first place in the NISH ...

March 26, 2004

Students at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering Win national Awards for Devices Helping Disabled

DURHAM, N.C.–- Three student teams at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering have won national awards for devices created in a biomedical engineering course called Devices for People with Disabilities. Twins Shin Yeu Ong and Shin Rong Ong, who are from Singapore, and the team of Diana Hsu, of Raleigh, and Elizabeth Strautin Schwartz, of Mt. Olive, N.C., tied for first place in the NISH Workplace Technology Scholarship competition. NISH, formerly the National Industries for the Severely ...

December 1, 2003

Duke Engineers Work on NASA's Vomit Comet

Isaac Chan (left) and Dan Choi run their experiment and try to keep track of Duke-jersey clad Cookie Monster In late July four Pratt seniors took turns enduring parabolic roller coaster-style rides on a NASA KC135A aircraft – nicknamed the "Vomit Comet" – to perform cellular experiments of their own design during fleeting minutes of weightlessness. Isaac Chan, Daniel Choi, John Fang and Gary Sing, all senior year biomedical engineering majors, came away from the experience with a ...

May 1, 2003

Pratt Fellow examines genetic manipulation

Imagine conducting innovative and potentially life saving biomedical research all before your 22nd birthday. Jamie Bergen will tell you that such dreams are possible through the Pratt Fellows program. Bergen is one of two dozen undergraduates selected annually to receive the school’s distinguished Pratt Fellowship, which allows students to receive course credit and a summer stipend to conduct research under the direct supervision of faculty members. Fellows are selected their junior year based upon research interests, academic record, intellectual ability and maturity. Bergen’s ...

May 1, 2003

Duke Engineering Students Win National Design Competition

Two separate ideas developed by students in a Duke engineering design class that seeks to improve the lives of children and adults with disabilities have become winning entries in the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) national design competition. David Chong of Wheaton, Ill., and Billy Watson of Tacoma, Wash., were named winners for adapting a baseball glove with an aluminum brace and a Velcro strap to aid the catching prowess of ...

April 29, 2003

Duke Engineering Students Win National Design Competition

April 1, 2003

Shah Takes the Helm of Student Government

After serving as president of his engineering class for each of the past three years, Sumit Shah will take the reins of ESG in the fall with hopes of building upon the successes of his predecessor and expanding the role of ESG into academic affairs. At the top of the list is an improvement to the course-evaluation system used by students. Shah hopes that improvements will allow students better information in deciding their class schedule. In addition to the course-evaluation system, ...

February 1, 2003

Does a BME Degree Really Prepare You for Medical School?

After surviving a six-week med school boot camp, Pratt biomedical engineering student Kemi Oni says she’s more than ready for medical school. Oni and 107 other minority students from around the U.S. gathered in New York City this past summer for the Minority Medical Education Program, sponsored by Columbia University. The MMEP is an intensive six-week course designed to emulate the first year medical experience. In addition to lectures, students get to observe doctors practicing medicine ...

February 1, 2003

Aruna Venkatesan: Making the Most Out of Engineering

While many students at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering say designing theoretical research projects highlights their undergraduate experience, biomedical junior Aruna Venkatesan says she is most excited by learning more about how engineering can improve the quality of life of others. This appreciation for engineers’ applicability probably stems from her own experience with the uses of biomedical engineering. In middle school, Venkatesan, who is from Pleasanton, Calif., was diagnosed with scoliosis -- an irregular curvature of the spine. She ...

December 1, 2002

Pratt Intern Finds Life-Changing Experience in Africa

Awakening as his plane landed in Tanzania, biomedical engineering student Sumit Shah looked out a dusty window and saw an acacia tree. It took a while before his sleepy mind conjured an explanation for the odd, flat-topped canopy of leaves on slanting, nut-brown tree limbs. He was finally in Africa. Shah, whose ambition is to pursue HIV/AIDS research as a physician, decided to intern in Tanzania in part because Africa is struggling to survive the worst ...

February 1, 2002

Class Lets Students Engineer Devices for the Disabled

To help a five-year-old with cerebral palsy cut paper as easily as her classmates, two students at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering designed an electric scissors attached to a common computer mouse and a specialized paper stabilizer. Engineering senior Andrew Reish, of Vienna, Va., and graduate student Travis McLeod, of Winston-Salem, NC., designed their electric paper cutting assister as part of a class, BME 260 Devices for Disabled, that gives engineering students the opportunity to design special instruments that will enable their disabled ...

December 11, 2001

Engineering Student Is One of Three Duke Rhodes Scholarship Winners

Pavan Cheruvu, a triple major in biomedical engineering, electrical engineering and chemistry, was one of three Duke seniors to win a prestigious 2002 Rhodes Scholarship. The awards were announced Sunday. Cheruvu, of Tampa, has been involved in research on artificial hearts, and has helped develop a software model for a cardiac device. He has a 4.0 grade point average. He spent a summer in southern India, where he worked in a community hospital as the organizer of ...

February 19, 1999

Duke Students Design Device to Aid Paralyzed Musician

Last fall, Duke biomedical engineering seniors Lindsay Johnson and Corey Weiner pooled their engineering and musical knowledge to design and build a custom electronic device whose big round sensor pads sound electric guitar-like notes when struck by light wooden hammers. Their hope is that Hamer will be able to play bass string guitar-like riffs with the new made-to-order instrument in the same manner he now plays an acoustic string instrument called the hammered dulcimer, which he ...