Design Self-efficacyNSF-funded investigation of BME student self-efficacy throughout a design-rich undergraduate curriculum |
Clinical ImmersionNIH-funded effort to establish a summer program that prepares BME students to identify needs in urban clinics |
Health EquityIUPUI-funded effort to integrate concepts around health equity into the BME undergraduate curriculum |
Ethical Inquiry in BMEOngoing qualitative research into BME student attitudes and abilities toward ethical reflection and inquiry |
In the engineering classroom and workplace, self-efficacy is an inferred skill. Thus, research focused on identifying how self-efficacy relates to engineering design achievement would provide a basis for intentional and effective improvements to engineering curricula, educator training, and workplace professional development. In this work, which is funded by an NSF PFE: RIEF Grant, we take a BME discpline-specific approach toward studying engineering design self-efficacy in the context of a design-rich undergraduate curriculum. Furthermore, this grant supports our professional development as engineering education researchers and biomedical engineering faculty.
The development of new medical devices and technologies requires a BME workforce that is capable of identifying unmet clinical needs and working in teams to develop design solutions. Clinical immersion provides a complementary experience to the traditional BME curriculum, as students in such opportunities observe real-world application of medical devices and communicate with clinical personnel. Clinics in urban environments present a unique set of issues, including the challenge of delivering health care to populations that are socially and economically diverse. We developed the summer (IN)SCRIBE Program, funded by an NIH R25 Grant, as a seven-week summer clinical immersion and design experience that challenges student teams to integrate socioeconomic considerations into clinically-relevant design. The first (IN)SCRIBE cohort completed the program in summer 2021.
In 2021, the Indiana Department of Health added health equity as a core value needed to improve Hoosier health quality. With recently strengthened engineering and medicine partnership efforts in Indianapolis, we have an opportunity to impact healthcare innovation and delivery in our state. Educating biomedical engineers — who may perform research, provide care, or innovate medical solutions — is paramount in realizing effective and equitable medical innovation. Our work, which is funded through an internal Seed Grant from the IUPUI Stem Education Innovation & Research Institute (SEIRI), aims to advance health equity through engineering innovation by developing an initial evaluation tool and coursework that will inform an educational framework to integrate health equity education within engineering design.
As professionals, biomedical engineers will be expected to recognize their responsibilities and apply ethical inquiry when developing, refining, and communicating the solution to a biomedical engineering situation. We intend to bring to light the topics from animal euthanasia to professional codes throughout the BS BME curriculum. Dr. Miller and Dr. Higbee were particpants in a STEM Ethics Faculty Learning Community funded by an NSF CCE-STEM grant:
A year-long capstone project culminates in the senior year of the BS BME degree. To prepare our students for this challenge, we designed and integrated four design projects for students to experience during their 200- and 300-level lab courses. This work was supported by an internal Curriculum Enhancement Grant, funded by the IUPUI Center for Teaching and Learning.
We leveraged an internal Seed Grant from the IUPUI Stem Education Innovation & Research Institute (SEIRI) to develop and refine an undergraduate clinical shadowing experience for a required 300-level BME course and to prepare for our NIH R25 subission.
Undergraduate BME programs challenge students with rigorous and multidisciplinary curricula that integrate concepts from the life sciences, mathematics, and engineering. Furthermore, BME curricula often incorporate active and team-based learning methodologies, in addition to more traditional engineering problem solving. To succeed in such broad and challenging programs, students may depend on interactions with their peers, both in and out of the classroom. With this in mind, we leveraged an internal Learning Environment Grant to transform an undergraduate teaching space in order to support community-building and teamwork among undergraduate BME students.
In addition, we have observed that the shared challenge of an undergraduate BME curriculum creates a strong sense of community among each cohort of students, and we fear that students who enter our program during the COVID-19 pandemic may miss out on the formative experiences that begin to build such a community. We worked to implement digitial tools to build community among BME undergraduates during distance and hybrid learning environments.
