To BME faculty and staff,
Since launching two years ago, thirty-five faculty and five staff members are now formally participating in our biomedical engineering program. As envisioned, the program serves to bind the departments together as an interdisciplinary hub for biomedical engineering education. We have recruited a vibrant and active industry advisory board to provide guidance on our curriculum and career opportunities for our students. They recently made recommendations for capstone design and finding internships that we are now implementing.
Our undergraduate program has grown to about 160 students in the major. These students are traversing a multidisciplinary curriculum of math, science, humanities and engineering courses, including four courses each from chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering, and eight from biomedical engineering. They are getting hands-on skills in chemistry, rapid prototyping and electronics design, and they are learning to solve problems from multiple disciplinary domains. I couldn’t be prouder of the courage and tenacity shown by our students as they trek through this demanding degree program.
In addition, our graduate program has grown to about 25 students. It is ranked 22nd among public institutions and 45th overall, thanks to the outstanding research and reputation of our program faculty. We recently conferred four master’s degrees to our very first BME graduates. Two of our doctoral students have won NSF graduate fellowships. Our students are making great strides in scholarship and bringing much-needed biomedical engineering skills into our research laboratories.
The future of biomedical engineering is bright, and I look forward to working with you all in my final year as director to bring this program a few steps closer to its full potential.
Sincerely,
Mark Borden
Biomedical Engineering Program Director
