The last weeks have been spent attending conferences and career fairs, and working hard on our projects (along with a little pie-making). It’s been incredibly busy but also tons of fun!

In October, I had the opportunity to attend the annual Biomedical Engineering Society convention in Phoenix, Arizona. This was my second year attending the conference, and it was just as rewarding as it was the first time. One of the best things about BMES is that you get the opportunity to be exposed to a lot of different fields within bioengineering, and I saw some really interesting talks and pitches. Seeing the breadth of the field and how much you can do as a bioengineer is very enriching. We also go to explore the city of Phoenix a little bit, and even attended a Phoenix Suns basketball game on the first night.

Later in the month, I also attended the annual Society of Women Engineers convention in Austin, Texas. I had never attended SWE before, and I was so impressed by the size of the convention and how many women and men attended! It was incredible to see so many people come together to support women in engineering, and I got the opportunity to connect with so many intelligent, driven, and successful women. Moreover, the career fair at SWE was one of the best I have ever seen, and I really enjoyed speaking with companies and learning more about their work.

Back at Rice, I’ve been focusing time on my implementation project, MilkyWaves. I’ve been working with collaborators in Costa Rica to design a clinical trial protocol. Meanwhile, I’ve analyzed the current design and started working on changes for the next iteration of the device. This has required me to learn a lot of new skills, and I’ve been utilizing the extensive resources at the OEDK.

Our COPD exacerbation detection project has also been moving along. We had our midterm pitch in October, and our team received a lot of valuable feedback that we have used to make changes to our design and business models. We are currently working to further develop our design and financial models, and preparing for the final pitch to investors at the end of the semester.

I’ve also had the opportunity to do observations in the Texas Medical Center and look for needs that could turn into design projects next semester. I spent a lot of time in the urology department at Texas Children’s Hospital watching a wide variety of procedures, and it was really exciting to be in the operating room and see firsthand how surgeons and the OR staff handle these cases. I got to watch some robotic surgery cases as well, which was something I’ve never seen before.

It’s been a great semester so far, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the year!