
The BME Student Showcase

Hosted by Alpha Eta Mu Beta, the BME Student Showcase provides the incoming BME class with the opportunity to network with upperclassmen BME students who have been there and done that! Held on October 16th, 2024, we heard from 12 juniors and seniors who presented posters highlighting internships, co-ops, research, TA positions, study abroad, and more. See below our gallery of photos from our event and the profiles of our 2024 presenters (and our 2023 & 2022 presenters below that!).
The 2024 BME
Student Showcase





Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Emma Adolay
Emma Adolay is a senior in BME, on Pre-Med track and minoring in psychology. She is a medical scribe and trainer through INScribe in the emergency department, where she also volunteers. She is the president of AEMB for the 2024-2025 school year, and was previously the secretary. She researches on traumatic brain injury research under Dr. Riyi Shi in the Center for Paralysis Research. In addition, Emma has been a TA for BME 205, and will TA BME 256 this spring. She has been an ambassador for Weldon for the last 2 years, and is also a former participant of the ENT clinical immersion program.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2026
Matthew Margraf
Matthew Margraf is a pre-dental junior in BME, currently serving as the Vice President of Alpha Eta Mu Beta for the 2024-25 year. He is an undergraduate researcher for Dr. Solorio, and has completed SURF in the same lab during summer 2024. Matt was also a TA for BME 214, and will be a TA for BME 256 in the spring. Additionally, he is an active member in Formula SAE, the Brain Exercise Initiative, Purdue Ski Club, and BMES.

Expected Graduation: Fall 2024
Riya Mahajan
Riya has completed a co-op at Catalent Pharma Solutions and an internship at Cook Medical. She is involved in undergraduate research at Tong Neuroimaging Lab and is a teaching assistant for BME 206/21401 (previously for BME205 and CS159). Additionally, she is a Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering Ambassador, a member of Tau Beta Pi (TBP), and has held leadership roles as President and Vice President of AEMB. She also mentors for the Women in Engineering Program, volunteers at IU Urgent Care, and has shadowed at IU Arnett and IU Methodist.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2026
Andrew Piepho
Andrew Piepho has had a variety of experiences in and outside of BME, including an internship position at Perrigo this past summer, in which he focused on pharmaceutical production engineering and process improvement. He has worked as an undergraduate researcher in the Linnes Lab since May 2023, in which he has contributed to both wet-lab and electrical projects, culminating in third authorship on an accepted publication. He is the treasurer of Engineers Without Borders Purdue, an organization in which students work on development projects around the globe, through which he travelled to Rwanda for project work. Andrew also served as the mechanical team lead and project liaison for Engineering World Health, in which he has traveled to Louisiana to work on projects and learn about stakeholder needs.

Expected Graduation: Fall 2024
Lauryn Drager
Lauryn has had an internship with Cook Medical this past summer, working on the post-market engineering team. She has worked as a UGTA for BME207. Lauryn is currently performing undergraduate research in Dr. Ward's lab, where she is analyzing heart rate variability metrics post-COVID-19 vaccine. Lauryn is involved in Purdue Swim Club as well, where she has been the treasurer for the last two years.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Vivienne Franke
Vivienne Franke is currently a senior in BME. Vivienne has worked on a research project titled "3D motion analysis of the fingers and hand during rock climbing," a study that compared the climbing grip position between older and younger experienced climbers. They used a Vicon Motion Capture System and finger stiffness device to collect data. Vivienne has also helped brainstorm better ways to collect data and set up the study. She also had studied abroad at ETH Zurich in Switzerland during Spring 2024.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Dean Stornello
Dean has had a multitude of experiences in BME. He worked as a systems engineer for an internship at Fresenius Kabi. Dean is also a former participant, and now liaison, of the ENT Clinical Immersion Program. He is an undergraduate researcher in the Biomaterials Research Lab of Dr. Qazi. In addition, Dean is the ASME Prosthetics Lead, and a TA for the Pediatric Medical Devices course. Dean also studied abroad in France through Weldon.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Owen Jones
Owen Jones has had both co-op and internship experiences, totaling over a year of work experience. Companies he has worked for include J&J MedTech (formerly known as Ethicon), Cook Medical, BiVACOR, and Stryker. He highlights these experiences in his presentation, and they have led him to securing a full-time role with Stryker following graduation!

Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Grace Rennekamp
Grace Rennekamp has had a year long co-op at Boston Scientific doing Quality, Supplier, and Process Development Engineering. In addition, she has interned with Biosense Webster (of J&J Medtech) as an Associate Clinical Account Specialist. Grace performs undergraduate research in BME and Nutrition Science on degenerative disk disease, pregnancy strain studies, and breast cancer metabolism. She is also involved in the Society of Women Engineers and the Academic Success Center.

Expected Graduation: Fall 2025
Nathan Azimov
Nathan Azimov is a junior in BME. He has been working in the Center for Paralysis Research under Dr. Riyi Shi for the last two years. He has also performed summer research at the University of Connecticut. Nathan also was a UGTA for BIOL 231, has been involved in RIISE for over two years, is the treasurer for Sigma Alpha Mu at Purdue, and is the current secretary of the Alpha Eta Mu Beta Purdue Chapter.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2026
Matthew Schaller
Matthew Schaller is a junior in BME who is the current PSEF Public Relations Director. He also acts as the Purdue Mind Secretary, and has conducted summer undergraduate research at the Montana State University Center for Biofilm Engineering.
The 2023 BME
Student Showcase





Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Maya Godbole
Maya Godbole is a Pre-Medicine BME student who has completed the pre-MSTP Summer Internship with IU School of Medicine. She is the Director of Programming for AEMB and Vice President of Project Icarus. Maya is involved with EPICS BME as a co-design lead with a patent pending design. She also takes part in Purdue BME research in the Lee Lab and is a member of Purdue Solutions Consulting.

Expected Graduation: Fall 2024
Riya Mahajan
Riya Mahajan has served as the President of Alpha Eta Mu Beta for the 2023-24 year. She has completed her co-op experiences with Catalent Pharmaceuticals in Manufacturing Science and Technology and with Cook Medical in Sustaining Engineering. Riya is a BME Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Tong Lab as well as an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant for BME 205 and CS 159. Additionally, she is a Weldon BME Ambassador and IU Health volunteer.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Allison Lisota
On campus, Allison is the co-president of Purdue MIND (Medical Innovation, Networking, and Design) which aims to give undergraduate students the opportunity to get hands-on experience in product development. The last two summers, she has interned at MilliporeSigma in Kankakee, IL as a Process Safety Management Intern (Summer '22) and as a Reliability/Process Engineer (Summer '23). Allison also participated in the BME Cardiovascular Immersion Program this summer, and is a member of the Operations Committee for Purdue RIISE (Reinventing the Interface of Inclusivity, Sports, and Engineering).

Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Raiyana Alam
Raiyana Alam has worked in Psychology Research in the iCAN ADHD Research Lab for two years. She is the Director of Outreach for AEMB and Director of Islamic Education for the Muslim Student Association. Raiyana is a dedicated volunteer at Food Finders and at IU Arnett Urgent Care. She has participated in the Cardiovascular Clinical Immersion Program at IU Methodist Hospital and has shadowed physicians at IU Arnett. Raiyana is a Presidential Scholarship Recipient.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2024
Joshua Sexton
Joshua Sexton is the founder of the IU Health ENT Clinical Immersion Program at Weldon. He has been an Undergraduate Researcher in the Harbin Lab working on the development of fibrillar collagen graft for treatment of volumetric muscle loss. He has served as Undergraduate Teaching Assistant for BME 256 and BME 356. Joshua is also a dedicated IU Health Arnett Emergency Department Volunteer.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Caitlyn Elizaga
Caitlyn currently serves as president of the Purdue chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and was formerly the Social Programming Sophomore Representative. Additionally, this year she has been selected as an undergraduate teaching assistant for the sophomore core curriculum Biomolecular and Cellular Systems Laboratory. She has also recently concluded a Process Analytical Development internship at Pfanstiehl, a biopharmaceutical manufacturing company. Furthermore, she has previously completed research in conjunction with the Argonne National Laboratory working on the relationship between polymer crystallinity and supported weights using x-ray diffraction.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Niharika Narra
Niharika has been involved in cardiovascular clinical research at Stanford University to investigate the predictors of heart failure through wearable devices. She is also working as an undergraduate researcher in the Qazi lab for musculoskeletal regeneration where she explores the characteristics of injectable hydrogels. This summer, Niharika was a part of the IU Methodist Clinical Immersion program which allowed her to observe a diverse range of cardiovascular surgeries. She is also a part of the BME Ambassadors, Intro to Biomechanics teaching team, and the Honors Leadership Council.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Raishma Anwar
Raishma Anwar was an intern at Fogarty Innovation this summer through the Lefteroff Internship. She is the President of the Caduceus Club and of Project Icarus, Vice President of Operations and Logistics of Women Founders, and the College of Engineering Liaison for UGRSP. She conducts undergraduate research in the Medical Physics department and in an independent research project through Project Icarus. Raishma is also in EPICS, the Student Advisory Board for PUSH, and the Young Leaders Board of the Lupus Research Alliance.
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Expected Graduation: Spring 2024
Caitlin Savage
This past summer, Caitlin has worked an internship with Jacobs Engineering. She is currently an incoming 5th year Professional Master's student. As for BME involvements, Caitlin is the Vice President of AEMB and she has held three UGTA positions (BME 214, 207, 360). Additionally, in May 2022, she attended the Biomedical Modeling in Global Health in Scandinavia study abroad program. Finally, Caitlin is a member of the outreach team for the Women in Engineering program.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Nora Mick
Nora Mick interned this past summer at Zimmer Biomet in Manufacturing. She also traveled abroad to Japan with Purdue BME. She is involved in minority orgs including the Asian American Association, Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers, and Women in Engineering Program. In all of these clubs, Nora has been a mentor/member. Nora currently serves as the Director of External Relations within BMES.

Expected Graduation: Fall 2023
Rama Coimbatore
Rama has recently completed an internship in Quality Engineering at Boston Scientific as well as a year long co-op in R&D at Cook Research Incorporated. She currently performs research related to neuromodulation in Purdue BioCom Lab, where her work is focused on data visualization and signal processing. She previously served as the Internal Vice President for the Society of Women Engineers and the Treasurer of AEMB. Additionally, Rama served as an undergraduate teaching assistant for two lab courses: Biomolecular/Cellular Systems Lab and Biomechanics/Biomaterials Lab.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Maneesh Balla
Maneesh Balla does research in the Low Lab, where they are trying to develop drugs to influence Immune cells to attack cancer cells. He is the President of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Club on campus, Marketing Director of Caduceus Club, and Outreach Director of Project Icarus. He is an EPICS BME design lead. Maneesh is also a UGTA for the Honors Engineering Design class as well as the BME Thermodynamics class.

Expected Graduation: Fall 2023
Iris Layadi
Iris spent her first Co-Op rotation at WishBone Medical, Inc. as a product development engineering on the external fixator team working on the Smart Correction hexapod system for pediatric trauma and deformity correction. She moved to Cook Medical for her next two Co-Op rotations, where she was a R&D Engineering under the MedSurg division, before transitioning to a PEPS intern role working part-time during the semester. At Cook, Iris supported over 5 Reproductive Health and Urology projects throughout various design stages. She also conducts research at two labs at Purdue – IE's healthcare ergonomics and analytics lab, and BME's healthcare analytics and stochastic optimization lab, where she has developed a computational framework for monitoring mental workload to optimize human factors within robotic-assisted surgical environments, and on operations research and tool building to optimize patient care allocation in skilled nursing facilities, respectively.

Expected Graduation: Fall 2024
Caitlyn Schmeiser
Caitlyn Schmeiser has completed two consecutive co-op rotations (May 2022 - December 2022) at Zimmer Biomet as a development engineering intern working in upper extremities (shoulder joint replacement design), and became an inventor on a provisional patent application. She has been an undergraduate TA for CS 159 since Spring 2023. She interned at Medtronic last summer (Summer 2023) as a reliability engineer intern working on a remediation project. Through her co-op at Zimmer Biomet and BME 460, Caitlyn has had the opportunity to shadow orthopedic shoulder replacement surgeries and an open heart surgery.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2024
Ariana Aghevli
During her time at Purdue, Ariana has done a Co-Op at Depuy Synthes, interned at a start up called Adipo Therapeutics, done research in Dr. Solorio's lab since August of 2019, and has been part of the IUSM MPESC program. She also competed in a design competition called the Coulter College Program, co-hosted by BMES and Medtronic. Ariana is also the captain of the Purdue Debate Team.
The 2022 BME Student Showcase





Expected Graduation: Spring 2024
Lucy Baker
Lucy researches with the Liu Group on organic adhesives for wet tissue based on the chemistry of marine mussels. She has completed lap shear tests using pig skin with multiple adhesive formulations. In addition, she created an adhesive catalog as a material science intern at Cook Medical

Expected Graduation: Spring 2023
Kyndall Davis
Kyndall currently serves as president of the Purdue chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). Additionally, this year she has been selected as Purdue's student ambassador for the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME). She has also held a position as a College of Engineering Ambassador for the past 2 years. Through NSBE networking events, she has been able to secure internships at both Stryker and Boston Scientific during her time at Purdue.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2025
Moses Hamm
Moses has been involved in research in the Cardiovascular Flow Modelling Lab under Dr. Rayz and Neal Patel. He specifically performs fluid simulations on patient brain scans to correlate hemodynamic factors with aneurysm growth. He is also working on automatic morphological analysis of brain scans in Python.

Expected Graduation: Fall 2023
Arthur Klein
Arthur has served as a co-op at Entegris, a fluid handling company, a design lead in EPICS, and a project manager at SCOPE Consulting where he worked on integrating AI and healthcare. He is also the treasurer of the Brazilian Student Association at Purdue.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2023
Zach Lamantia (AEMB)
Since freshman year, Zach has been participating in undergraduate research in the Basic Medical Sciences department working to optimize non-viral gene delivery to mammalian cells. During his summers, he completed the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), had the opportunity to shadow at IU Methodist in the Cardiovascular surgery department as part of the BME Augustmester program, and completed an internship at Eli Lilly in their Bioproduct Research and Development department where he validated a new method for mammalian cell line screening. Last year he was President of the Undergraduate Research Society of Purdue, and this year he is the President of Alpha Eta Mu Beta, the Biomedical Engineering Honor Society.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2023
Emily Lothamer (AEMB)
Emily is an EMT for the Purdue Fire Department. She has performed undergraduate research with Dr. Nauman (HIRRT lab) and clinical research through Methodist Hospital. In addition, she is the student coordinator for the Cardiovascular May/Augustmester. She is also the TA for BME 460 and ENGR 161/162. She has shadowed and volunteered in the ER in the IUH system.

Expected Graduation: Fall 2022
Scott Malloy (AEMB)
Scott has finished his Co-Op rotations, working at Boston Scientific and Abbott at various stages of the product lifecycle process. Since finishing his last rotation, he has started to get involved further in computational modeling of medical devices and anatomy in the body through his research with Dr. Vitaliy Rayz in the Cardiovascular Flow Modeling Lab and work with Draper Laboratories. He is also spending time as a TA for core BME coursework.

Expected Graduation: Fall 2022
Adalyn Meeks
Adalyn is currently a scribe for INScribe working in the emergency department at IU Arnett and IU White Memorial Hospitals. She also recently finished her co-op internship with MED Institue (a daughter company of Cook Medical), a consulting firm for medical devices specifically focusing on cardiovascular stents. She was also a TA for BME 207 (previously BME 305), an introduction to circuit theory and a circuit lab.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2023
Carl Russell III (AEMB)
Carl has recently completed his co-op experience in quality engineering at Zimmer Biomet and R&D at Cook Medical. Currently performing biosensors research in the Laboratory of Implantable Research, he has previous experience in a biomechanics lab and has directed a systematic review. His systematic review has now transformed into a project partnering Purdue EPICS with the National Kidney Foundation. Carl also serves as the project manager of the EPICS BME team where he has overseen the delivery of 5 projects. He has current positions as the President of the Caduceus Club, Secretary of the BME honors society, and Engineering Liaison and Social Media Chair of UGRSP.
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Expected Graduation: Fall 2022
Haripriya (Priya) Sakthivel
Through her undergrad in BME, Priya has gained a spectrum of research experiences in basic science and translational areas including hematology, pulmonary biology, surgical device design, and clinical psychology, resulting in four publications. Her industrial co-op experience was with Ethicon Endo-Surgery, working in front-end R&D and lifecycle. She is actively involved in the community through performing crisis intervention on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline/988 and as a hospice volunteer.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2023
Sumantika Sekar
Sumantika is extremely passionate about the cardiovascular system and is pursuing a 5th Years Master's with a thesis on how altered CSF and Neurovascular flow correlate to Alzheimer's. In the spirit of being a true engineer, she loves building her understanding of efficient design. She also recently completed an internship with Medline to grow her skills in all parts of the design process.

Expected Graduation: Fall 2022
Anirudh Sivarajan
In his undergraduate career, Anirudh has performed in 6 different research positions and even started a toy company with his friends. He learned invaluable life experiences from these different positions, and can't wait to share them with other students.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2023
Madeleine Stanik (AEMB)
Madeleine's industry experience includes being an engineering intern at Baxter and a statistics intern at Cook Medical. She is also in Professor Nan Kong's lab where she assists a grad student in analyzing Indiana nursing home data.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2024
Naomi Surburg
Naomi is a development engineering intern employed at Cook Biotech on a co-op for a full year. She works on the Product Research team to design future devices and test their feasibility.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2023
Siting Zhang
Siting has served as a tour guide, undergraduate teaching assistant, and undergraduate student researcher in the TMET lab within the Weldon School. Additionally, she serves on the board of BMES as the Director of Social Media as well as an engaging mentor to sophomores. Finally, she interned at Integer under the implantable leads R&D team.

Expected Graduation: Spring 2023
Sam Zhang
Sam has performed research in Cardiovascular Imaging Research Lab for last two years. He is also the Co-Chair of BME Ambassadors, BMES Treasurer, and Project Director of ASME Prosthetics Design Team.