I would highly recommend BMES to any undergraduate student. It’s by far the most welcoming and open conference, with a large focus on introducing undergraduates to academia and the large breadth of research taking place in BME. It’s an amazing networking opportunity for students, where you can learn about many graduate school programs and obtain fee waivers. There are also a few industry representatives that come, and it’s an amazing opportunity to interact with these companies and professors to see future career opportunities. Of course, it is also a conference and has so many different areas of research such as biomechanics, synthetic biology, bioinformatics, and medical imaging. I am interested in machine learning approaches in bioinformatics and medical imaging, and got to see lots of unique approaches people have used to optimize their networks and how they have started visualizing key regions through interpreting machine learning approaches.  I also loved being able to present my research at my posters and hearing feedback from other students who are working on similar projects or have expertise in the field. This was my second year attending BMES, and each time was an absolute blast where I was able to learn so much about research and future career opportunities. I would highly recommend anyone apply to go to BMES next year!

-Sarthak Tiwari

This is my first time attending BMES in person. I gave my poster presentation on Saturday, the final day of the conference. I had a decent number of people dropping by and asking me questions throughout the hour. So it went well for me. But with ~300 poster presentations going on at the same time, it was hard to navigate and spend quality time at each of the posters as an attendee. I enjoyed the sessions in biomechanics, especially the ones not on my specific topic (cardiovascular solid mechanics). I also learned a lot of interesting research in DEI and engineering education sessions. I caught up with some of my old friends in undergrad and from post-bac research, as well as had a great time with the UU crew.

Overall, I would recommend the conference for students to attend. Undergraduate students may get even more out of the conference since much of the programming was geared toward graduate school applications and many BME programs are here for recruitment.

– Jack Wang

My research area of focus is cell and tissue engineering with an emphasis on cartilage engineering.  At BMES I had a poster presentation and podium talk, both of which are great experiences to promote your lab as well as yourself.  BMES is a great conference because of the ability to be immersed in so much research as well as the networking opportunities with different universities, professors, and companies.  I especially recommend BMES for undergraduates who are looking to go to graduate school and stay in academia.

-Hunter Levis

I really enjoyed my time at BMES. It was my first time presenting a poster outside of the undergraduate symposium, so it was a great practice on communication. It was also interesting to see work done by students around the country in my area of focus of neuroengineering. I enjoyed being able to wander around the poster halls to also get a glimpse into work being done outside of my are of focus as well. I truly enjoyed also being able to get to know some faculty members outside of school. It helps you to see them as people in addition to researchers and mentors, and it makes them less scary!

-Colin McNabb