photo by Ruby Wallau
CAMPUS BEAT
COVID-19: Students Making a Difference
photo by Mathew Modoono
One week after the pandemic forced him to leave the Boston campus in March 2020, Max Seidel, E’23, mechanical engineering, joined with a friend to launch Atlanta Face Shields from his hometown. The group has donated over 5,000 shields to hospitals, police departments, schools, and other organizations mainly in Georgia, though some were shipped as far away as Mexico City and Pittsburgh. Upon returning to campus in fall 2020, Seidel continued the face shield effort with his two 3D printers in his single dorm room. Atlanta Face Shields has also expanded to the University of Alabama, Georgia Tech, University of Maryland, and California State University San Marcos. The charity was inspired by a call to action by Tikkun Olam Makers, an Israeli organization of communities in 24 countries that helps the poor, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Seidel, who is a College of Engineering Healy Scholar, is creating a chapter of the organization at Northeastern, which will enable fellow students to join him in creating and distributing face shields along with participating in other Tikkun Olam Maker events.
James Sinoimeri, E’21, ME’21, chemical engineering, worked at Moderna as an mRNA process development co-op. Moderna is a biotech company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts that developed the COVID-19 vaccine known as mRNA-1273. Sinoimeri’s primary responsibilities at Moderna related to the scale-up, characterization, and optimization of the manufacturing process for mRNA-1273. More specifically, he was tasked with studying separation and reaction mixing unit operations to cut down on processing times and increase product yields. Sinoimeri’s co-op was full time in fall 2020 and continued part-time through the spring 2021 semester, working on similar projects for Moderna’s COVID-19 variant booster shot and seasonal flu vaccine. He is joining Moderna full-time as a process development engineer upon graduation to continue his work. 4 Engineering @ Northeastern | SPRING 2021
While on co-op at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Lianna Schuele, E’21, industrial engineering, ME’21, engineering management, analyzed the everyday patient experience at the hospital and recommended improvements. “I studied numerical metrics like patient wait times, conducted interviews with key stakeholders and mapped out processes to identify areas of improvement,” she says. When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged unexpectedly, Schuele was also able to help the hospital redefine some of its screening and visitation policies, as well as effectively manage the distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE). “In every industry, there are opportunities to examine the way things are done and make workflows run more smoothly. I’d love to have a career in process improvement, perhaps in a manufacturing or supply chain environment, where I can achieve cost savings—but also make people happier and more productive,” Schuele notes.
