LeAnn Dourte, Practice Associate Professor in Bioengineering, has been awarded a 2023 Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence by Non-Standing Faculty.
“This award reflects LeAnn’s innovation and dedication in teaching our students in Bioengineering’s biomechanics, biomaterials and biomechatronics classes and labs,” says Ravi Radhakrishnan, Professor and Chair of Bioengineering. “She is a core member of our teaching faculty, spearheading the Department’s initiatives to improve experiential learning and classroom experiences through the SAIL model of education.”
The Structured, Active, In-Class Learning (or SAIL) model of education emphasizes teamwork and dynamic problem-solving. According to Penn’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), SAIL “provides students with the opportunity to struggle through the application of course ideas and material, often the most difficult part of learning for students, with guidance from instructors as well as help from their peers.”
In addition to her pedagogical interests, Dourte serves on the Bioengineering Climate Committee and is also highly involved in student wellness programming, serving as the Department’s Wellness Ambassador for the School.
The Provost’s Awards for Teaching Excellence by Non-Standing Faculty were established in 1988.
Sharon Kuo, a graduating senior in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM), is the inaugural recipient of the Madison “Maddie” Magee Award for Undergraduate Excellence.
Kuo, who is also minoring in Mathematics, comes to Penn from Taipei, Taiwan. Her interests within her major include mechanical design and product design, and she is passionate about space exploration and advancing human spaceflight.
This award will continue to be presented each year to a Penn Engineering senior who best exemplifies the energy, enthusiasm and excellence that was Maddie.
The award for Undergraduate Excellence was established in honor of Madison “Maddie” N. Magee, who graduated with both a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) and a master’s degree in Bioengineering (BE) in 2021. Maddie passed away while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail on May 28, 2022. Read more about this award here.
Throughout his career, Brian Litt has fabricated tools that support international collaboration, produced findings that have led to significant breakthroughs, and mentored the next generation of researchers tackling neurological disorders. (Image: iStock Photo/Alona Siniehina)
When Brian Litt of the Perelman School of Medicine and School of Engineering and Applied Science began treating patients as a neurologist, he found that the therapies and treatments for epilepsy were mostly reliant on traditional pharmacological interventions, which had limited success in changing the course of the disease.
People with epilepsy are often prescribed anti-seizure medications, and, while they are effective for many, about 30% of patients still continue to experience seizures. Litt sought new ways to offer patients better treatment options by investigating a class of devices that electronically stimulate cells in the brain to modulate activity known as neurostimulation devices.
Litt’s research on implantable neurostimulation devices has led to significant breakthroughs in the technology and has broadened scientists’ understanding of the brain. This work started not long after he came to Penn in 2002 with licensing algorithms to help drive a groundbreaking device by NeuroPace, the first closed-loop, responsive neurostimulator to treat epilepsy.
Building on this work, Litt noted in 2011 how the implantable neurostimulation devices being used at the time had rigid wires that didn’t conform to the brain’s surface, and he received support from CURE Epilepsy to accelerate the development of newer, flexible wires to monitor and stimulate the brain.
“CURE is one of the epilepsy community’s most influential funding organizations,” Litt says. “Their support for my lab has been incredibly helpful in enabling the cutting-edge research that we hope will change epilepsy care for our patients.”
Penn Engineering announced the faculty recipients of the 2023 Student Choice Awards (formerly the Teaching and Advising Awards). Each year, the Penn Engineering undergraduate student body thoughtfully selects the recipients of these awards for their dedication in teaching, mentorship and student advocacy. This year also features two new awards, the Student Advocacy Award and the Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award.
Brit Shields, Senior Lecturer in Bioengineering, is the inaugural recipient of the Student Advocacy Award. This award is presented to a member of the Penn Engineering faculty by the Underrepresented Student Advisory Board in Engineering in recognition of their outstanding commitment to women and underrepresented student advocacy, equity and inclusion.
Dr. Shields poses with her award at the annual Penn Engineering Awards Ceremony.
Shields completed a Ph.D. at Penn in 2015 in History and Sociology of Science, with a dissertation on scientific diplomacy through the example of Richard Courant and New York University, where Shields completed an M.A. in Humanities and Social Thought: Science Studies.
She was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Bioengineering in 2019. She has brought her expertise in the history and sociology of science to her leading role in developing and improving the ethics curriculum for all students in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Read other stories featuring Brit Shields in the BE Blog.
Read the full list of 2023 Penn Engineering Student Choice Award Winners in Penn Engineering Today.
Each year, Penn Engineering’s seniors present their Senior Design projects, a year-long effort that challenges them to test and develop solutions to real-world problems, to their individual departments. The top three projects from each department go on to compete in the annual Senior Design Competition, sponsored by the Engineering Alumni Society, which involves pitching projects to a panel of judges who evaluate their potential in the market.
This year’s panel included 42 judges, 21 in-person and 21 online, who weighed in on 18 projects. Each winning team received a $2,000 prize, generously sponsored by Penn Engineering alumnus Kerry Wisnosky.
This year, Bioengineering teams won two of the four interdepartmental awards.
Technology & Innovation Award
This award recognized the team whose project represents the highest and best use of technology and innovation to leverage engineering principles.
Team Modulo Prosthetics with Vijay Kumar, Dean of Penn Engineering, and Lyle Brunhofer, Chair of the 2022 Senior Design Competition Committee.
Winner: Team Modulo Prosthetics Department: Bioengineering Team Members: Alisha Agarwal, Michelle Kwon, Gary Lin, Ian Ong, Zachary Spalding Mentor: Michael Hast Instructors: Sevile Mannickarottu, David Meaney, Michael Siedlik Abstract: Modulo Prosthetic is an adjustable, low-cost, thumb prosthetic with integrated haptic feedback that attaches to the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint of partial hand amputees and assists in activities of daily living (ADLs).
Leadership Award
This award recognizes the team which most professionally and persuasively presents their group project to incorporate a full analysis of their project’s scope, advantages and challenges, as well as addresses the research’s future potential and prospects for commercialization.
Team ReiniSpec with Vijay Kumar, Dean of Penn Engineering, and Lyle Brunhofer, Chair of the 2022 Senior Design Competition Committee.
Winner: Team ReiniSpec Department: Bioengineering Team Members: Caitlin Frazee, Caroline Kavanagh, Ifeoluwa Popoola, Alexa Rybicki, Michelle White Mentor: JeongInn Park Instructors: Sevile Mannickarottu, David Meaney, Michael Siedlik Abstract: ReiniSpec is a redesigned speculum to improve the gynecological exam experience, increasing patient comfort with a silicone shell and using motorized arm adjustments to make it easily adjustable for each patient, while also incorporating a camera, lights, and machine learning to aid in better diagnosis by gynecologists.
The 2022 Senior Design Competition Committee was chaired by Lyle Brunhofer, Penn Engineering Alumni Society Board Member and alumnus of Penn Bioengineering (BSE 2014, Master’s 2015).
After a year of hybrid learning, Penn Bioengineering (BE) seniors were excited to return to the George H. Stephenson Foundation Educational Laboratory & Bio-MakerSpace for Senior Design (BE 495 & 496), a two-semester course in which students work in teams to conceive, design and pitch their capstone projects in bioengineering. This year’s projects include tools for monitoring health, software to improve communication for the healthcare and supply chain industries, and devices to improve patient care for women and underrepresented minorities.
Team 11 (ReiniSpec) From L to R: Ifeoluwa Popoola, Alexa Rybicki, JeongInn Park (TA), Caitlin Frazee, Michelle White, Caroline Kavanagh (on laptop).
The three winning teams went on to compete in the annual interdepartmental Senior Design Competition sponsored by the Penn Engineering Alumni Society. BE took home two of the four interdepartmental awards: Team Modulo Prosthetics won the “Technology and Innovation Prize,” recognizing the project which best represents the highest and best use of technology and innovation to leverage engineering principles; and Team ReiniSpec won the “Leadership Prize,” which recognizes the team which most professionally and persuasively presents their group project to incorporate a full analysis of their project scope, advantages, and challenges, and addresses the commercialization and future potential of their research.
All BE teams were also required to submit their projects to local and national competitions, and were met with resounding success. “The creativity and accomplishment of this Senior Design class is really unparalleled,” said David Meaney, Solomon R. Pollack Professor in Bioengineering, Senior Associate Dean of Penn Engineering, and instructor for Senior Design. “The number of accolades received by these students, as well as the interest in transforming their ideas into real products for patients, reached a new level that makes us extremely proud.”
Keep reading for a full list of this year’s projects and awards.
Team 1 – MEViD
MEViD (Multichannel Electrochemical Viral Diagnostic) is a modular, low cost device that leverages electrochemistry to rapidly diagnose viral diseases from saliva samples.
Team members: Yuzheng (George) Feng, Daphne Kontogiorgos-Heintz, Carisa Shah, Pranshu Suri, & Rachel Zoneraich
MOD EZ-IO is a low-cost, novel intraosseous drill that uses force and RPM readings to alert the user via an LED when they have breached cortical bone and entered cancellous bone, guiding proper IO placement.
Team members: Gregory Glova, Kaiser Okyan, Patrick Paglia, Rohan Vemu, & Tshepo Yane
Harvest by Grapevine is a user-centric software solution that merges social network communication and supply chain logistics to connect hospitals and suppliers under one unified platform.
Winner of the 2022 President’s Innovation Prize (team member Lukas Yancopoulos and partner William Kohler Danon [SAS 2022] for “Grapevine,” the larger software package of which “Harvest” was a part)
CliniCall helps streamline and centralize communication channels, offering a real-time monitoring device that enables on-site/attending physicians to communicate with on-call physicians through a livestream of patients and data.
Team members: Neepa Gupta, Santoshi Kandula, Sue Yun Lee, & Ronil Synghal
Team 5 – PneuSonus
PneuSonus is a low-cost, user-friendly wearable strap that aids in detecting pediatric pneumonia by using frequency analysis of sound waves transmitted through the lungs to identify specific properties related to fluid presence, a valid indicator specific to pneumonia.
Team members: Iman Hossain, Kelly Lopez, Sophia Mark, Simi Serfati, & Nicole Wojnowski
Team 6 – Chrysalis
Chrysalis is a smart swaddle system comprising an electric swaddle and accompanying iOS application that comforts neonatal abstinence syndrome infants via stochastic resonance and maternal heartbeat vibrational patterns to reduce opioid withdrawal symptoms without pharmacological intervention or constant nurse oversight as well as streamlines the Eat, Sleep, Console documentation process for nurses.
Team members: Julia Dunn, Rachel Gu, Julia Lasater, & Carolyn Zhang
EquitOx is a revolutionized fingertip pulse oximeter designed for EMS that addresses racial inequality in medicine through the use of one-off tongue-calibrated SpO2 measurements.
Team members: Ronak Bhagia, Estelle Burkhardt, Juliette Hooper, Caroline Smith, & Kevin Zhao
Modulo Prosthetic is an adjustable, low-cost, thumb prosthetic with integrated haptic feedback that attaches to the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint of partial hand amputees and assists in activities of daily living (ADLs).
Team members: Alisha Agarwal, Michelle Kwon, Gary Lin, Ian Ong, & Zachary Spalding
COR-ASSIST by Cygno Technologies is a low-cost intra-aortic balloon enhancement that directly supports heart function by increasing cardiac output to 2.8L/min, at a much lower cost and bleeding risk than the current Impella cardiac assist device.
Team members: Francesca Cimino, Allen Gan, Shawn Kang, Kristina Khaw, & William Zhang
Pedalytics Footwear is a rechargeable sandal that continuously monitors foot health and prevents diabetic foot ulcer formation by novelly tracking three key metrics indicative of ulceration, temperature, oxygen saturation, and pressure, and sending alerts to patients via the Pedalytics app when metric abnormalities are detected.
Team members: Samantha Brosler, Constantine Constantinidis, Quincy Hendricks, Ananyaa Kumar, & María José Suárez
ReiniSpec is a redesigned speculum to improve the gynecological exam experience, increasing patient comfort with a silicone shell and using motorized arm adjustments to make it easily adjustable for each patient, while also incorporating a camera, lights, and machine learning to aid in better diagnosis by gynecologists.
Team members: Caitlin Frazee, Caroline Kavanagh, Ifeoluwa Popoola, Alexa Rybicki, & Michelle White
Each Penn Bioengineering (BE) student’s undergraduate experience culminates in Senior Design, a two-semester capstone project in which student teams conceive, design, and develop a bioengineering project, whether a medical device, molecular biological therapeutic, or research tool. Projects are inherently interdisciplinary, and can involve biomaterials, electronics, mechanics, molecular biology, nanotechnology, and microfluidics. Research and development is supervised by BE faculty, lab staff, and graduate student TA’s and project managers, and work is conducted in the George H. Stephenson Foundation Educational Laboratory & Bio-MakerSpace (which successfully reopened for in-person activities this Spring semester).
This year’s 11 teams included the variety and innovation we’ve come to expect from our outstanding students, ranging from devices which track medical conditions, such afib and POTS, to technology responding to our post-COVID world, such as a disinfecting robot and a kit to make telemedicine more effective. The year finished with presentations to alumni judges, and BE’s annual Demo Day (the only in-person demo day on the engineering campus this year) on April 15, 2021, in which students showcased their designs to faculty.
Several teams were highlighted for awards recognition.
Tula won the Grand Prize Award at the Weiss Tech House Senior Design Pitch competition, sponsored by Penn’s Weiss Tech House, as well as a Berkman Opportunity Fund grant from Penn Engineering. Tula’s members are Bioengineering student Shreya Parchure (BSE 2021 & MSE 2021), Mechanical Engineering student Miriam Glickman (BSE 2021 & MSE 2022), and Computer Science students Ebtihal Jasim (BSE 2021) and Tiffany Tsang (BSE 2021).
TelemedTree (David Alanis Garza, Aurora Cenaj & Raveen Kariyawasam) and rUmVA (Yasmina Al Ghadban, Rachel Madhogarhia, Jeong Inn Park, Robert Paslaski & Phuong Vu) also received Berkman Opportunity Fund grants.
RHO Therapeutics was named a finalist in the Rice 360 Design Competition for 2021 (David Bartolome, Ethan Boyer, Patrisia de Anda, Kelly Feng & Jenny Nguyen).
In addition, three teams won BE’s internal Senior Design competition: IdentiFly (MEAM student Armando Cabrera, ESE student Ethan Chaffee, MEAM student Zachary Lane, ESE student Nicoleta Manu & BE student Abum Okemgbo), OtoAI, and rUmVa.
Short descriptions of each project are below. See each project’s full abstract, final paper, and video presentation here. The full 2021 presentation Youtube playlist is linked below.
reActive is a low-cost wearable device that measures ground reaction force as well as knee angle to aid physical therapists in quantifying an athlete’s recovery from an ACL injury.
EndoMagno is a novel magnetic endoscopy probe that effectively grips metallic objects by interfacing with an endoscope.
NoFib is an at-home wearable for athletes with histories of atrial fibrillation or those recovering from ablation surgeries who wish to continue their workout regimen and track their cardiac recovery without needing to leave their residence.
Tula is a smart compression stocking platform to improve quality of life for people with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), a disease which causes fainting upon standing due to blood pooling in legs. Tula can predict a POTS attack through real-time heart rate monitoring and then prevent fainting using dynamic compression.
RHO Therapeutics is a low-cost, wearable glove device that trains fine motor movements using a rehabilitative game that causes motor-mediated flexion and extension of the patient’s hand to aid in chronic stroke rehabilitation.
EarForce aims to monitor fighter pilots’ health during training and in-flight missions via a low-cost headphone system. The device collects physiological data through the ear and is compatible with existing pilot headphone systems.
IdentiFly is a low-cost device which will provide labs with an easy to integrate way to automatically sort fruit flies by sex.
TeleMedTree introduces a new level of telemedicine. It is an affordable precision-focused, at-home diagnostic kit to help immunocompromised individuals with respiratory conditions receive a high quality monitoring of their health that is on par or better than what is possible during an in-person visit.
OtoAI is a novel digital otoscope that enables primary care physicians to take images of the inner ear and leverages machine learning to diagnose abnormal ear pathologies.
Synchro-Sense is a device which detects when patients on ventilators are at maximum inhalation and triggers an X-ray image capture for accuracy.
rUmVa is a cost-effective, autonomous robot that can quickly disinfect rooms by intelligently sanitizing high-touch surfaces and the air.
With the shared vision to transform the future of oral health care, Penn Dental Medicine and Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have united to form the Center for Innovation & Precision Dentistry (CiPD). The new Center marked its official launch on January 22 with a virtual program celebrating the goals and plans of this unique partnership. Along with the Deans from both schools, the event gathered partners from throughout the University of Pennsylvania and invited guests, including the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research Director (NIDCR) Dr. Rena D’Souza and IADR Executive Director Chris Fox.
Conceived and brought to fruition by co-directors Dr. Michel Koo of Penn Dental Medicine and Dr. Kathleen Stebe of Penn Engineering, the CiPD is bridging the two schools through cutting-edge research and technologies to accelerate the development of new solutions and devices to address unmet needs in oral health, particularly in the areas of dental caries, periodontal disease, and head and neck cancer. The CiPD will also place a high priority on programs to train the next generation of leaders in oral health care innovation.
“We have a tremendous global health challenge. Oral diseases and craniofacial disorders affect 3.5 billion people, disproportionately affecting the poor and the medically and physically compromised,” says Dr. Koo, Professor in the Department of Orthodontics and Divisions of Community Oral Health and Pediatric Dentistry, in describing their motivation to form the Center. “There is an urgent need to find better ways to diagnose, prevent, and treat these conditions, particularly in ways that are affordable and accessible for the most susceptible populations. That is our driving force for putting this Center together.”
“We have united our schools around this mission,” adds Dr. Stebe, Richer & Elizabeth Goodwin Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “We have formed a community of scholars to develop and harness new engineering paradigms, to generate new knowledge, and to seek new approaches that are more effective, precise, and affordable to address oral health. More importantly, we will train a new community of scholars to impact this space.”
Born through Interdisciplinary Research
A serendipitous connection born through Penn’s interdisciplinary research environment itself brought Drs. Koo and Stebe together more than five years ago, an introduction that would eventually lead to creating the CiPD.
Dr. Tagbo Niepa, now assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, came to Penn Engineering in 2014 as part of Penn’s Postdoctoral Fellowship for Academic Diversity, an initiative from the office of the Vice Provost for Research. His studies on the microbiome led him to reach out to Dr. Stebe and Dr. Daeyeon Lee (also at Penn Engineering), and to connect them to Dr. Koo, initiating collaboration between their labs.
“Tagbo embodies what we are trying to do with the CiPD,” recalls Dr. Stebe. “He had initiative, he identified new tools and important context, and he did good science that may help us understand how to interrupt the disease process and identify new underlying mechanisms that can inspire new therapies.” Dr. Niepa worked on applying microfluidics and engineering to study the oral microbiome and better understand how the interactions between fungi and bacteria could impact dental caries.
“Upon meeting Michel, we became excited about the possibilities of bringing talent from the two schools together,” notes Dr. Stebe. A 2018 workshop organized by Drs. Koo and Stebe and funded by Penn’s Vice Provost of Research explored the potential for expanding cross-school research. “We invited researchers from dental medicine and engineering as well as relevant people from the arts and sciences to see if we could find a way to collaborate to advance oral and craniofacial health,” says Dr. Koo. “That was the catalyst for the Center; after the workshop, we put together a task force which would become the core members of the CiPD.”
In addition to Drs. Koo and Stebe, the CiPD Executive Committee includes Associate Directors Dr. Henry Daniell, Vice-Chair and W.D. Miller Professor, Department of Basic & Translational Sciences, Penn Dental Medicine, and Dr. Anh Le, Chair and Norman Vine Endowed Professor of Oral Rehabilitation, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery / Pharmacology, Penn Dental Medicine; as well as Dr. Andrew Tsourkas, Professor, Department of Bioengineering, Co-Director, Center for Targeted Therapeutics & Translational Nanomedicine (CT3N) and Chemical and Nanoparticle Synthesis Core, Penn Engineering; and Dr. Jason Moore, Edward Rose Professor of Informatics, Director of the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics. The core members of CiPD include 26 faculty from across both Penn Dental Medicine and Penn Engineering, and also from the Schools of Medicine and Arts & Sciences.
Andrei Georgescu, a member of Dan Huh’s bioengineering laboratory, prepares microfluidics for the lab’s work on organ-on-a-chip technology. Their innovative research was one of many Engineering projects featured in a recent video.
The University of Pennsylvania is highlighting its “ecosystem of innovation” in a new video, featuring some of the most cutting-edge work being done on campus and the infrastructure supporting that work. Alongside shots of the Singh Center for Nanotechnology, the Pennovation Center and the coming VentureLab are the familiar faces of Penn Engineers inventing the future.
The video includes the voices of Vijay Kumar, the Nemirovsky Family Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science; Dawn Bonnell, Penn’s Vice Provost of Research and the Henry Robinson Towne Professor of Materials Science and Engineering; and Konrad Kording, a Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor of Neurosciences and Bioengineering — each discussing the collaborative environment at the University.
After a year of hybrid learning, Penn Bioengineering (BE) seniors were excited to return to the 
by Beth Adams
“We have a tremendous global health challenge. Oral diseases and craniofacial disorders affect 3.5 billion people, disproportionately affecting the poor and the medically and physically compromised,” says Dr. Koo, Professor in the Department of Orthodontics and Divisions of Community Oral Health and Pediatric Dentistry, in describing their motivation to form the Center. “There is an urgent need to find better ways to diagnose, prevent, and treat these conditions, particularly in ways that are affordable and accessible for the most susceptible populations. That is our driving force for putting this Center together.”
“Tagbo embodies what we are trying to do with the CiPD,” recalls Dr. Stebe. “He had initiative, he identified new tools and important context, and he did good science that may help us understand how to interrupt the disease process and identify new underlying mechanisms that can inspire new therapies.” Dr. Niepa worked on applying microfluidics and engineering to study the oral microbiome and better understand how the interactions between fungi and bacteria could impact dental caries.