Crazy to believe that we’re already in the last semester of GMI! Winter break was nice and long, but flew by super quickly. The semester is picking up fast, but I’m excited to have the chance to work with more of my teammates than I did last semester.
This semester we will be working on our implementation projects using the Sprint format. This will be a unique opportunity to get a lot of work done on our project in a short amount of time. I will be leading this week’s upcoming sprint, and am glad to have more hands and minds working on the project! Below is the sprint map I created to detail what we want to accomplish this semester. It was a useful exercise to detail who was responsible for what, and see how everything relates to get us to our final goal of being ready to start clinical trials in May. 
For our BIOE 530 class, we have started to work on our design projects. I’ve been working with Sanjana, Anna, and Ryan on defining our project, which is focused on diagnosing and monitoring Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) in middle-income countries. It’s been different working in a bigger group of just GMI students, and also nice to work with people that I haven’t yet worked with! ROP is a disease I am not that familiar with, so we’ve been spending the last few weeks familiarizing ourselves with the disease state, and will continue to do this background research for a few more weeks. I’m excited to see where this project takes us this semester, and to get to work for a different patient population!
Finally, it’s also been fun to hang out with the GMI crew. Karlee, Tasha, Sanjana and I all explored the Hermann Park area. I had never been to the McGovern gardens before, and the gardens were just as beautiful as the weather. I’m glad I have such a great crew to explore Houston with!
Karlee, Tasha, Sanjana and me enjoying some tacos on a nice day in the park.