Studying health disparities in biomedical engineering curricula

Worked with a team of faculty to establish a Collective for Equity in Engineering focused on organizational transformation for graduate education at Virginia Tech. Led project on forming partnerships with graduate students, which entailed designing and administering a survey on graduate students’ engagement in equity work and organizing a graduate student advisory council housed in the Collective. Navigated fluid responsibilities such as reading and processing literature, conducting surveys, gathering information on existing resources, and synthesizing existing data.

Teaching assistant for an online section of Graduate Student Success in Multicultural Environments (GSSME), a five-week seminar course required for graduate students in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech. Monitored the zoom, answered students’ emails, took attendance, and graded assignments.

Worked on two NSF funded grants under Dr. Jeremi London. For the first grant, a systematic literature review was conducted on the role of NSBE and Divine 9 organizations in supporting Black engineering students' persistence, which resulted in a journal article and several conference proceedings. For the second grant, an face validity and exploratory factor analysis on a survey assessing tolerance for ambiguity was conducted. Several conference proceedings resulted from this work.

Teaching assistant for a two-semester sequential design course for students in four engineering departments (Biomedical Engineering, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering) at Virginia Tech. Advised Hip Exoskeleton and Knee Brace teams as groups and through one-on-one meetings with individual team members and graded team and individual assignments.

Worked in the Division of Computer and Information Science and Engineering

I served as an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Engineering and Science Education Department at Clemson University. I worked under the SC:SUPPORTED INCLUDES project addressing the role of familial influences in mathematical preparation for engineering students.

Served as an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant for the General Engineering Department. Assisted in the following courses: ENGR 1050 & ENGR 1060 (Engineering Disciplines and Skills I & II), ENGR 1410 (Programming and Problem Solving) and ENGR 2080 (Engineering Graphics and Machine Design)Duties involved taking attendance, facilitating questions, and holding night hours where I can help students with assignments. There were also opportunities to proctor exams and grade assignments.

My first semester, I worked with 3D digitizer and MATLAB to create anatomical axis and point cloud representation of the femur. Along with this, my group and I created a standard operating procedures document for using the 3D digitizer. Currently, I am working on a project that examines metal corrosion in hip implants.

As an REU student, I worked on a project creating a vehicle case reconstruction using a 3D laser scanner and finite element modeling to investigate possible contacts of a driver with the interior of a specific CIREN case vehicle. I also worked on a project using finite element modeling to investigate changes in the risk of concussion of a football helmet while altering the stiffness of the rear foam pads in the helmet.

As a participant in the Summer Undergraduate Research Program at the Medical University of South Carolina, I was placed to work under the Division of Physical Therapy doing rehabilitation engineering research. As a participant, my project involved creating a MATLAB code to calculate the ideal strength of a novel training device to improve walking ability. I also had the opportunity to collaborate with a fellow undergraduate researcher to develop gait metrics using MATLAB.

With my team, we created a database of medical equipment manuals for biomedical technicians in Tanzania and worked on developing a medical equipment inventory app to increase hospital efficiency.

Interned under a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Gazes Cardiac Research Institute at the Medical University of South Carolina. As an intern, I assisted in protein extraction and performed western blots.