2025 Team Prism Optics – Bringing Vision Care Within Reach
From left to right: Lyle Brunhofer, Senior Design Project Competition Chairman; Dr. Robert Ghrist, Andrea Mitchell University Professor; Daniel Botros; Fady Fahmy; Daniel Serebrinic Jacobsohn; Danish Mahmood; and Aarush Sahni.
In Part 2 of the 2025 Senior Design Awards Spotlight, we turn to Team Prism Optics, winners of the Leadership Prize at Penn Engineering’s Senior Design Competition.
Team Members: Daniel Botros, Fady Fahmy, Daniel Jacobsohn Serebrinic, Danish Mahmood, Aarush Sahni
Senior design in Penn Bioengineering is a yearlong capstone experience in which bioengineering seniors identify an unmet bioengineering need, design a solution to address the need, and create a high quality prototype that demonstrates their design. The course consists of BE4950 and BE4960, and was most recently taught by Dr. Erin Berlew, Dr. David Meaney, and Dr. Michael Siedlik.
Across the globe, more than a billion people lack access to basic vision care, often simply because there aren’t enough optometrists to perform eye exams (Staff, One billion have preventable vision impairment 2019). Team Prism Optics took on this challenge by building a device that automates the process of determining an eyeglass prescription, offering a low-cost, portable solution that can be used without the need for a trained clinician.
The result is a self-administered vision screening platform that mimics the clinical process of subjective refraction. A user looks through a lens system and responds to a tumbling E eye chart using a joystick, indicating the direction of the letter. This interface, designed to be intuitive for users regardless of literacy, language, or age, was a major innovation in the team’s design. As Danish Mahmood explained, “Realizing the joystick input to indicate the direction of the tumbling E’s is functional for illiterate, non native English speaking, young and old people was our biggest logistical challenge.”
The device was designed and built through a deeply collaborative process. Mahmood developed the control software and mechanical precision of the lens adjustment system, while Fady Fahmy handled the acrylic housing and gears. Aarush Sahni envisioned the LCD interface and helped lead algorithm development alongside Daniel Jacobsohn Serebrinic and Daniel Botros, working closely with clinical mentors at Penn Medicine. The system is already being tested with classmates and is set to begin clinical trials with patients this summer.
Throughout the process, the team remained focused on their goal: to make vision care accessible in underserved communities. Their mentor noted that clinical trials beginning just months after graduation are almost unheard of for senior design teams—underscoring just how effectively Prism Optics aligned their design to a global need.
Dr. Michael Siedlik, one of the bioengineering senior design instructors, highlighted just how exceptional this trajectory is for a student team:
“Not many senior design teams are able to start clinical trials a few months after graduation… This is a testament to their ability to identify a bioengineering need that is very well suited to their expertise and to the resources available to them, as well as their ability to execute at a high level as a team.”
“We have prototyped a working self-administered eye exam that mimics the process of subjective refraction with an automated device… Our next step is to ensure many patients can use it successfully and achieve accurate results,” Mahmood shared.
Team Prism Optics earned the Leadership Prize at Penn Engineering’s 2025 Senior Design Competition, a recognition of both their technical achievement and their clear path to real-world deployment.
References:
Staff, RO. (2019, October 8). One billion have preventable vision impairment. Review of Optometry. https://www.reviewofoptometry.com/article/one-billion-have-preventable-vision-impairment