Congratulations to all the winners of the 2024 Annual BME Undergraduate Research Symposium!

The Department’s Annual Biomedical Engineering Senior Research Symposium was held Friday, April 19, 2024.  This is the department’s yearly celebration of our BME student capstone experience: every student in the BME major completes some form of independent research or design and development activity which serves as the foundation for the content for their required capstone technical Scientific Writing and Communication 2-semester course sequence (BME 4991 and 4992). BME majors fulfill this opportunity by working in an academic research lab at the University of Utah or participate in an industrial internship R&D experience.  The diverse range of possible hosts/sources for these required BME research projects is helpful in preparing each student for a particular career path. For example, a student planning to attend medical school can chose to perform a clinically oriented research project under the mentorship of a faculty member with a clinical appointment. This will not only bolster the student’s application to medical school, but the mentor can be of significant assistance in guiding the student to an appropriate MD or MD/PhD program. Likewise, a student with interests in entering the industrial sector will do a project at a local company, providing a valuable perspective on what skills and aptitudes employers seek in entry workers and even assistance in securing the first industrial job after graduation. While involved in this capstone experience, the student performs and gathers a set of original research data required in fulfilling work in the Writing and Communication BME 4991/4992 courses.  Their research data comprise the source material for a written “senior thesis” that follows the guidelines for a scientific manuscript structured and formatted for submission to the journal, IEEE Transactions in Biomedical Engineering. Students also perform a series of oral technical and layperson presentations culminating in their research talk at the Department’s yearly BME senior research symposium.  While participating in this full-year course sequence, BME students also learn to provide respectful peer critique and guidance to each other to foster effective means of communicating about a wide range of research and development projects that they mutually see and share over 2 semesters.  This capstone experience is an important training activity to foster communication (both oral and written) as well as peer critique.  This year’s symposium included 72 individual oral research talks (5 minutes each) and 72 research poster presentations, an impressive intellectual culmination of this BME-unique course sequence.

2024 Biomedical Engineering Senior Symposium Awardees

Room 1

  • First Place: Rui Jin
  • Second Place: Aksel Anderson
  • Third Place: Oliver Hubbard

Room 2

  • First Place: Mairin Kelly
  • Second Place: Isaac Kendall
  • Third Place: Cameron Davis

Room 3

  • First Place: Peyton Leyendecker
  • Second Place: Calvin Coates
  • Third Place: Ty Lunde

Poster Session Winners

  • First Place: Cannon Hansen
  • Second Place: Lyndsey Schultz
  • Third Place: Cameron Davis

Outstanding Undergraduate Leadership Award

  • Tanner Frahm

Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award

  • Peyton King

Outstanding Dissertation Award

  • Casia Wardzala