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Biomedical Engineering Education

Biomedical Engineering Education - Poster Session D

Poster E8 - Gleaning Lessons in Connecting Academic Major to Biomedicine in an NIH ESTEEMED Program

Friday, October 25, 2024

3:30 PM - 4:30 PM EST

Location: Exhibit Hall E, F & G

Presenting Author(s)

CC

Caitlin Conyers

Undergraduate Researcher
University of Georgia, United States

Co-Author(s)

Timothy Burg

Professor
Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia, United States

Last Author(s)

Karen Burg

Harbor Lights Endowed Chair
University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia, United States

Introduction: The NIH ESTEEMED program is designed to support educational activities that enhance the diversity of the biomedical research workforce through early preparation for undergraduate students in STEM fields [1]. Indeed, it is now more fully understood that biomedical engineering and biomedicine applications benefit from transdisciplinary linkages with core subject areas. That is, traditional siloing of subject matter leads learners to over-compartmentalize concepts [2], potentially reducing creativity and innovation, both fundamental to research. With this concept in mind, in the early 2000s, the NIH launched the Bioengineering Bioinformatics Summer Institute program [3], with focus on “new areas that would benefit from the significant value added of applying the technologies and methods of bioengineering and bioinformatics”; the program guidelines strongly favored the inclusion of non-biomedical engineering students in order to incentivize cross-curricular opportunities. Now, over two decades later we believe the reverse to also be true – that the new areas benefit from biomedical themes. As we established the UGA ESTEEMED program, we focused on the fundamentals; with those in place, we now have the opportunity to review and improve the program to ensure cross cutting biomedical impact. A goal of the UGA ESTEEMED program is to promote appreciation of and connectivity between chosen academic major and biomedicine. The second intent is to increase appreciation over time.

Materials and

Methods: The ESTEEMED cohorts represent most engineering specialties. To date, three cohorts, each of five scholars, have enrolled in the UGA program. Cohort 1 has completed the 2-year program, Cohort 2 has completed Year 1, and Cohort 3 has completed a summer bridge, prior to commencing Year 1. The UGA program comprises three overarching elements:
1. Life mentoring – helping the scholars discover more about themselves, their interests and motivations, and their career aspirations.
2. Academic Mentoring – helping the scholars learn and acquire new tools for classroom success, including the tenets of the Guaranteed 4.0 system that include purposeful notetaking and review.
3. Research Mentoring – guiding the scholars to find research opportunities and providing them with research professional skills.
We aim to help the scholars cultivate a “college mindset”. Feedback from our external evaluator suggests that the workshops, meetings, advisement, peer comrades, and research training promote a science identity and a sense of value and worth. Scholars expressed to her an emotional connection to the people within UGA ESTEEMED and that they felt a sense of belonging beyond being self-motivated. They stated that the UGA program bolsters their self-esteem and ability to overcome institutional barriers and succeed in their undergraduate STEM education and research.

Results, Conclusions, and Discussions: To examine the efficacy of program elements to promote connections between majors and biomedicine, we are designing a survey of participants in the program. The potential survey questions are as follows:

Appreciation of connection of intended major and biomedicine:
Q1. In what ways could you apply your major to solve problems in biomedicine?
Q2. When entering the ESTEEMED program, how important/crucial did see your major to biomedicine?
Q3. At this moment, how important/crucial do you see your major to biomedicine?

Evolution of interest in biomedicine as a career component:
Q4. What activity/event was most helpful to show that you have career choices that could involve biomedicine?
Q5. What was your interest in biomedicine when entering the program?
Q6. What is your current interest in biomedicine?

Evolution of interest in graduate studies:
Q7. What are the benefits of pursuing a graduate degree?
Q8. What was your interest when entering the program in later pursuing a graduate degree?
Q9. At the current stage of your program, what is your interest in later pursuing a graduate degree?

Evolution of understanding of self:
Q10. How has learning more about your personal interest influenced you to pursue a career path in biomedicine?
Q11. After considering your personal values, do you feel you will be able to find a career in biomedicine that matches your core values?
Q12. Has self-discovery led you closer to or further away from a career in biomedicine?

In conclusion, the opportunities to influence scholars are inspirational, curricular and cross-curricular. Scholars completing the second year talked in terms of where they are going in their major with respect to biomedicine at a very high level. One of the most interesting feedback takeaways was that the students graduating from the program had evolved from believing all biomedical research is conducted by biomedical engineers to believing they could pursue specialties within their own major that could be shaped to support biomedicine. The results of the survey will further elucidate key activities and maturation of understanding of connectivity or how and when understanding of connectivity matures.

Acknowledgements (Optional): This material is based upon work supported by National Institutes of Health ESTEEMED R25-EB031570-02 and the Harbor Lights Endowment.

References:
[1] NIH ESTEEMED, https://www.nibib.nih.gov/training-careers/training-opportunities/enhancing-science-technology-engineering-and-math-educational-diversity-esteemed-research-education-experiences-r25
[2] Lam L., Cochrane T., Davey C., John S., Shaktivesh S., Ganesan S., Rajagopal V., 2021, January. Improving student outcomes through transdisciplinary curriculum design in biomedical engineering. In REES AAEE 2021 conference: Engineering Education Research Capability Development: Engineering Education Research Capability Development (pp. 561-569). Perth, WA: Engineers Australia.
[3] NIH/NSF BBSI, https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/nibib-nsf-bioengineering-bioinformatics-summer/5526/nsf02-109