Madalyn is a senior PhD student and works with Dr. Mark Rentschler in the Advanced Medical Technologies Laboratory (AMTL). Her work has been focused on characterizing adhesion between a micro-patterned substrate and a soft synthetic biological tissue.
While the direct application for her work is in optimizing the mobility of a robotic capsule endoscope – a medical device which can be actively controlled within the gastro-intestinal tract for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes – the experimental methods and computational models Madalyn developed can assist experimentalists, modelers and practitioners in the design of tunable adhesive substrates for a wide variety of applications.
Madalyn defended her PhD in November 2016 and plans to graduate in December of 2016.
Another research area which interests Madalyn is the design of lower-limb prosthetic sockets for people living in low resource areas around the world. She spent 3 months in 2015 working in South Africa with other engineers and prosthetists to design a low-cost solution for people living on $85 USD a month or less.
She has applied to the Core Fulbright U.S. Scholar program which would enable her to return to South Africa for 11 months to continue this work. Ultimately, Madalyn is passionate about helping others through the design and development of medical devices.
Outside of academics, Madalyn loves to spend time outdoors and participates in sports such as rock climbing, mountain biking, skiing, hiking, and tennis. She also loves to cook and plays the piano and guitar for fun. One of Madalyn’s favorite activities to do in Boulder is to listen to live music at the Laughing Goat on Pearl Street.