Biomedical Engineering Newsletter Nov. 2020
Welcome to the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Texas! Our country is bravely forging ahead during this pandemic and so are we in Biomedical Engineering. Our hardworking faculty and staff have shown tremendous resilience in switching to alternate modes of teaching and our students have shown their adaptability in an exemplary manner. From conducting senior design presentations online to having a virtual graduation ceremony for our May 2020 graduates, it has been an interesting time for all of us. I am overjoyed to report that we have now graduated more than 100 students from Biomedical Engineering since our first graduates walked the stage in 2018. I am even prouder to say that we are now an ABET-accredited program! The department is 6 years old and our 3-year old graduate program has grown to add more curricular features including options in AI and management. We have settled in our 26,000 sq. ft. building and look forward to welcoming students back on campus again soon.
Despite the pandemic, our graduates have been able to find jobs in top companies in the DFW region and nationally. We added 2 more faculty in 2020 and our enrollment has grown to 287 students! Our research laboratories are active with graduate and undergraduate students working responsibly, while practicing relevant safety measures. I invite you to explore our website and see what we have to offer. Whether you are a prospective student or parent, an industry or research representative, I encourage you to contact us for any questions. Go Mean Green! Go BMEN!
Sincerely,
Vijay Vaidyanathan, Ph.D. Founding Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering
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Our Curriculum Our Undergraduate Program
Our Graduate Program
7 Degree Tracks
Biomedical Engineering, M.S.
Biomedical Instrumentation
30 hours with Thesis option
Biomechanics
33 hours with Non-thesis option
Biocomputing
Electives from Engineering, Management, Health Services Administration, Performance Arts Health, or Speech and Hearing
Biomaterials Biotechnology Pre-med* Business
3-in-1 Degree:
M.S. - MBA in 2 Years: Masters of Science in Biomedical Engineering / MBA in Business Management
Minor in one of the following: EENG/MEEN/ CSCE/MTSE/BIOL
The UNT G. Brint Ryan College of Business and the College of Engineering offer a joint degree program which confers an MBA in Business Management from the College of Business and a Master of Science (MS) in Biomedical Engineering.
Our New Business Track:
Ph.D. Tracks:
Starting Fall 2021, students opting for this track can choose four approved electives from the Brint Ryan College of Business at UNT. Students have the option of getting a business minor by choosing two more approved electives.
Biomaterials – PhD in Materials Science and Engineering with Biomedical Engineering concentration
Major in BMEN Minor in MATH
Biomechanics and Rehabilitation – PhD in Mechanical and Energy Engineering with Biomedical Engineering concentration
Semester Credit Hours:
Biomedical Instrumentation and signal processing – PhD in Electrical Engineering with A minimum of 120 semester credit hours, of Biomedical Engineering concentration which 36 must be advanced courses, is required for the baccalaureate degree in Biomedical Engineering. A minimum of 137 semester credit hours is required for the pre-med* degree track.
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UNT Biomedical Engineering By the Numbers: Fall 2020 Undergraduate Program Graduate Program Year Started: Fall 2014
Year Started: Fall 2017
Students Enrolled: 254
Students Enrolled:
46% Female
33 48% Female
Average SAT/ACT Score for Incoming Freshmen:
Graduate Assistants:
SAT: Verbal + Math:1157
Teaching: 8
ACT: 24.34
Research: 7
Total Graduates:
Ph.D. Tracks with
94
Concentration in Biomedical Engineering: 9
Research
Total Graduates:
Awards & Expenditures:
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Period 2018-20: Research Awards $0.83 M Period 2018-20: Avg Research Expenditure $376,901
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UNT Biomedical Engineering Student Demographics: Fall 2020
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Multidisciplinary Computational Neuroscience Laboratory for Anti-Epileptogenesis Dr. Lin Li’s computational neuroscience laboratory aims to combine multi-disciplinary techniques, including electrophysiology, neuroimaging, and advanced data analysis, to enhance the understanding of network mechanisms of epilepsy, ultimately improving its prevention and cure.
non-invasive functional resonance imaging (fMRI). The increase of co-activated brain connectivity revealed by SEEG and fMRI suggested a robust network mechanism of epileptogenesis and has therefore become our target for novel antiseizure therapies to treat these pharmacoresistant patients.
Epilepsy is one of the most common and serious neurological disorders. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the global burden of this disease is equivalent to lung cancer in men and breast cancer in women. Current treatments fail to control seizures in 40% of patients with epilepsy, and there are no preventative treatments. Recent studies in functional neuroimaging identified epilepsy as a network disorder, which enlightened a new route for studying and understanding its underlying mechanism using network science. Dr. Lin Li’s computational neuroscience laboratory at the Department of Biomedical Engineering aims to perform multidisciplinary electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies of both patients and rat models of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE) and posttraumatic epilepsy in order to identify biomarkers and targets for novel approaches to seizure control, disease prevention, and a cure.
Our current research focuses on the identification of the similar SEEG-fMRI patterns in epilepsy patients, especially in young children who have only experienced one to two seizures and who are still considered to be in the midst of epileptogenesis and developing the epileptogenic network. We also aim to continue conducting animal research in discovering antiepileptogenesis approaches. Currently, our design of experiments include the application of local expression of precise inhibition using designer receptor exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADD) and global expression of inhibition using low dosage laser therapy or photobiomodulations.
All of our ongoing projects will be efforts of broad collaborations with other labs and institutions. We have strong collaboration with Dr. Maurizio Manzo’s lab (https:// sites.google.com/site/photonicsdevfabricationlab/) and work jointly with UCLA Laboratory for Epilepsy Research (https:// It is currently not possible to study epileptogenesis, i.e., the epilepsyresearch.dgsom.ucla.edu/). We also work closely with latent period of epilepsy, in human subjects due to clinical prac- UCLA Department of Neurology, Cook Children’s Hospital, tice regulations that restrict direct assessment of neuronal net- and Shen Zhen Children’s Hospital, with the shared goal of works. For example, using stereoelectroencephalography uncovering the mystery of the epilepsy and finding promising (SEEG), to patients with recurrent, chronic, drug-resistance solutions for prevention and a cure. epilepsy. The state-of-the-art of research in Dr. Li’s lab is a bifocused program on both epilepsy patients and animals with the same condition. Using the animal model, we are able to produce the mTLE condition and monitor the process of dysfunctional alternations of the neuronal networks during the early period of the epileptogenesis. Our prior SEEG study in a rat mTLE model suggested a hyper-connected intra-network brain connectome pattern was established in the early latent period of epilepsy. This result has also been confirmed with
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Dr. Lin Li Young Investigator Award Recipient
Dr, Lin Li is an Assistant Professor in BMEN at UNT. Dr. Lin Li completed his Post-doc in Computational Neuroscience at the University of California Los Angeles and his Ph.D. in Bioengineering at the University of Texas at Arlington Joint with UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Dr. Lin Li has been honored with the 2019 Young Investigator Award from the American Epilepsy Society (AES) for his work, titled “Electrograph Substrates of Altered Brain Networks During the Latent Period of Epileptogenesis�. This award recognizes and honors thirteen outstanding young investigators each year who conduct research in basic or clinical neuroscience related to epilepsy.
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Protein and Cellular Engineering Laboratory The principal investigator of this research group is Dr. Clement Chan, who joined UNT Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2020. The research approaches of this team involve using a computational-experimental interdisciplinary strategy to engineer proteins, aiming to develop biological components with new properties; they then harness these engineered proteins for biomedical and health-related applications. Dr. Chan received Ph.D. and postdoctoral training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In recent work, his group developed various biosensing proteins and cellular devices for novel signal processing and decision-making in response to environmental changes. The lab is currently focusing on 1) establishing principles for rational design of biosensors and 2) exploring genetic circuit topologies for engineering cellular behavior. Genetic circuits are powerful tools for implementing new cellular functions. Development of many circuits require biological parts that can flexibly rewire genetic pathways. However, natural parts usually respond to one specific signal for controlling one specific genetic element, in which this inflexibility constrains possibility in circuit design. To overcome this constraint, the Chan lab has developed a module swapping strategy for engineering transcriptional regulators, which enable creation of modular biosensors. They demonstrated that in some regulators, ligand-binding modules and DNA-binding modules can be swapped to create hybrid proteins with new combinations of signal detection and promoter recognition. They also harnessed resulting regulators to develop several genetic circuits to implement novel behavior for technological applications, supporting that these modular sensors are powerful tools for cellular engineering. In coming years, the Chan group is expected to continue to create biological parts from many types of proteins and to build circuits for a wide range of applications.
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Citations and further readings from recent research progress: 1. Dimas, R.P., Jiang, X.L., Alberto de la Paz, J., Morcos, F. & Chan, C.T.Y. Engineering repressors with coevolutionary cues facilitates toggle switches with a master reset. Nucleic Acids Res 47, 5449-5463 (2019). 2. Dimas, R.P. et al. Engineering DNA recognition and allosteric response properties of TetR family proteins by using a module-swapping strategy. Nucleic Acids Res (2019).
Dr. Clement Chan is an Assistant Professor in BMEN at UNT. Dr. Clement Chan completed his Post-doc in Biological Engineering at MIT/Boston University and his Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry at MIT.
Multiscale Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering Laboratory Dr. Huaxiao “Adam” Yang Lab’s long-term goal is to model, understand, and treat human cardiovascular diseases with human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) and next-generation tissue engineering technologies.
nanopatterned 2D PSC-CM monolayer for understanding cardiac electrical and mechanical couplings; micropatterned single PSC-cardiomyocyte for modeling familial cardiomyopathies, micropatterned cardiac microfiber for PSC-CM maturation in calcium handling and T-tubule formation; micropatterned 3D cardiovascular organoid for modeling heart development, druginduced and environment-caused birth defects, and congenital heart diseases. 2) Regenerative medicine for cardiovascular repair. Specifically, we apply promising interventions for assisting cardiovascular repairs, such as acellular therapy with microRNA (miRNA), nanoparticle, and injectable hydrogel for improving cardiac function; NIR-II small molecule with high quantum yield and sensitivity for in vivo stem cell tracking and quantification in long term; and 3D bioprinting for cardiovascular remuscularization and revascularization.
Dr. Yang joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNT in the fall semester of 2020 as an Assistant Professor. Before joining UNT, he obtained his Ph.D. under Dr. Bruce Z. 3) Biomedical microdevices for delineating the key roles of cellGao in the Biofabrication and Biophotonics lab at Clemson cell, cell-ECM, and cell-environment interactions in the cardioUniversity Department of Bioengineering and co-advised by Dr. vascular pathophysiological developments and treatments. Thomas K. Borg at Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Department of Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology. By then He focused on applying advanced biofabrication and live-cell imaging technologies to better understand cardiac physiology and adult stem cell-based therapy on cardiac regeneration. Then he joined Dr. Joseph C Wu’s lab at Stanford University Cardiovascular Institute as an American Heart Association (AHA) postdoctoral fellow to further study hiPSC and hiPSCderived cardiovascular cells (cardiomyocytes and endothelial cells) from patients for modeling cardiovascular development and diseases. Dr. Huaxiao “Adam” Yang’s lab focuses on: 1) Biofabrication technologies for modeling cardiovascular development and heart diseases using patient-derived pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) in a culture dish. Specifically, we apply the
Dr. Huaxiao “Adam” Yang is an Assistant Professor in BMEN at UNT. Dr. Huaxiao “Adam” Yang completed his Post-doc at Stanford University’s School of Medicine and his Ph.D. in Bioengineering at Clemson University.
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Micro and Nanoengineering Innovations in Medicine (MiNiMedicine) Laboratory MiNiMedicine Lab, led by Dr. Yong Yang, focuses on engineering biomimetic cellular microenvironments for regenerative medicine and human disease models. Regenerative medicine aims at replacing or regenerating human cells, tissues or organs to restore or establish normal function. Stem cells have provided significant new potential opportunities for the treatment of untreatable diseases at present; however, the challenges are to maintain the regenerative capacity of stem cells and selectively differentiate stem cells into clinically relevant cell types. Conventional cell culture methods using flat and stiff plastic surfaces do not recapitulate the biochemical (growth factors and cytokines), physical (nanotopography and stiffness) and mechanical (fluidic forces and mechanical strains) characteristics of the in vivo cellular microenvironment, and thus cell behaviors on such surfaces significantly deviate from their in vivo counterparts. Therefore, there is a pressing need to incorporate the microenvironmental characteristics into and revolutionize stem cell culture technologies. By innovating micro-/nanoengineering techniques and biomaterials, we precisely control these microenvironmental cues in a biomimetic manner to advance our understanding of how these cues regulate cell behavior. One ongoing project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, is to advance next-generation cell culture technologies by investigating nanotopographical memory effects of stem cells. As exemplified in Fig. 1, nanotopography can regulate the behavior of human bone marrowderived mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) and eventually decide their fate.
Fig. 1 hMSCs grown on an array of pillars of 500 nm in diameter, 950 nm in centerto-center distance and 500 nm in height.
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Fig. 2 Leukemic cells display distinct interactions with stromal cells and osteoblasts in 3D from 2D, which affects anti-cancer drug resistance.
With a better understanding of the interactions between cells and microenvironmental cues, we engineer microscale physiologically relevant systems to resemble living tissues, i.e. organon-chips by integrating these cues into microfluidic platforms to understand the progression and advance diagnosis and treatment of diseases. We have engineered a 3D microfluidic model of the bone marrow microenvironment for study of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) as shown in Fig. 2. The engineered disease models are of physiological relevance, because they allow precise control over the cell types and key microenvironmental characteristics contributing to the disease. An ongoing project, sponsored by the National Institute of Health, is to engineer a biomimetic alveolar interstitium model to assess the toxicity of engineered nanomaterials. These models will bridge the gap between expensive, time-consuming studies and traditional, unrealistic in vitro models, thus improving our limited compression of the role of microenvironmental signals in disease progression and helping identify new therapeutic targets and more effective disease treatment options. Dr. Yong Yang is an Associate Professor in BMEN at UNT. Dr. Yong Yang completed his Post-doc in Biomedical Engineering at Duke University and in Nanoscale Science and Engineering at Ohio State University. He completed his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at Ohio State University.
Smart Polymers for Biomedical Applications (SPBA) Laboratory This lab is led by Melanie Ecker, who joined the department in fall 2019 as an assistant professor. With the research in her lab, she is combining the field of polymer science with that of biomedical engineering.
Dr. Ecker is a chemist with a strong background in materials science. She graduated in 2015 in Germany in the field of shape memory polymers and has extensive experience in the characterization of materials properties. During her doctoral research, she built a strong expertise in structure-property relationships of polymers. Now, she’s combining her passion for polymer science with the field of biomedical engineering to develop next-generation smart polymeric biomaterials and to work on polymer-based medical devices and sensors. Areas her lab is particularly interested in are
target within the body. That includes, but is not limited to, the mechanical properties, surface and bulk properties, surface chemistries, water absorption, hydrophobicity, surface topography and much more. However, most of the devices currently on the market are using industrial polymers. While they may work for some applications, they are usually not tailored specifically for their application and are borrowed from other industries. This is where Dr. Ecker and her SPBA lab have identified a niche. By looking at the environment at a specific anatomical region within the body and by having the application in mind, her lab will be able to customize a polymer so that it has the best properties to fulfill its function. The overall goal is to ensure that the mechanical properties, as well as the chemical composition, are adequate for the application while having the material be biocompatible to cause the least adverse host reaction as possible. We are looking forward to seeing what exciting new devices are leaving her lab within the next couple of years.
1) conformal and biocompatible bioelectric devices such as neural devices to study the electrophysiology of the enteric nervous system 2) responsive and bioactive polymeric biomaterials for wound healing and 3) biodegradable and biocompatible ‘heat shrink tubes’ made of shape memory polymer to be used, for example, as bandages to prevent of Colonic anastomotic leakages. Why polymers? Polymers belong to a class of biomaterials that are widely used for medical applications. One advantage of these materials is that they are highly versatile and can be tuned to meet the needs of a specific
Dr. Melanie Ecker is an Assistant Professor in BMEN at UNT. Dr. Melanie Ecker completed her Post-doc in Bioengineering and Materials Science at University of Texas at Dallas and her Ph.D., in Natural Sciences at Freie Universität Berlin.
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Nanomaterials, Biomolecular Engineering, and Cell Circuits Laboratory Meckes joined our faculty this summer as an assistant professor of biomedical engineering. Meckes was previously at Northwestern University, where he was the Eden and Steven Romick and an International Institute for Nanotechnology Postdoctoral Fellow. While there, his research focused on the use of high- throughput nanolithography to program stem cell behavior and the development of spherical nucleic acid nanoparticles with improved biodistribution and enhanced immunostimulatory properties for cancer immunotherapy platforms. Prior to his position at Northwestern, he received his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego and his B.S. in Bioengineering from Rice University. Dr. Meckes’s research has resulted in 20 publications and five pending patents. Brian Meckes’s lab focuses on developing nanomaterials that improve therapeutic targeting and enhance cellular programming. In particular, his lab will create the next generation of smart, tailorable and responsive nanotherapeutics that are able to more intelligently interact with specific cells. These nanotherapeutics will be designed to recognize and respond to protein signals from neurons, thereby improving targeting of specific brain regions and subpopulations of neurons. These new classes of nanomaterials will have significant implications for improving patient outcomes and reducing side- effects in medications conventionally used to treat cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and mental health disorders. His research also seeks to create cellular models that mimic developmental and degenerative processes. These studies will open new avenues for programming cell behavior for regenerating complex tissues while identifying novel drug targets that slow disease progression.
Dr,. Brian Meckes is an Assistant Professor in BMEN at UNT. Dr. Brian Meckes completed his Post-doc in Chemistry at Northwestern University and his Ph.D. in Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego.
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The Biomedical Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (Biomed-AI.com) The Biomedical Artificial Intelligence lab is led by Dr. Mark V. Albert. Dr. Albert has a joint appointment between Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. He arrived in Fall 2019 as an assistant professor, and now has a lab of 8 PhD students, 5 MS in students, and a number of undergraduates. His lab’s goal is to leverage deep learning to provide clinically useful inferences on large data sets. The focus is on wearable devices to address mobility impairments, but the lab broadly applies deep learning strategies and system design to a wider variety of challenges in clinical decision making. Dr. Albert is a graduate of Computational Biology from Cornell University where his PhD work was in computational neuroscience applying principles of efficient coding to understand how the brain processes sensory information – a thread his lab continues to pursue. His primary research direction, using machine learning to inform clinical research and care in mobility impairments, began with postdoctoral research in the Center for Bionic Medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago) and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine where he used skills developed in a mobile phone startup to infer the activities and assess the general functional ability of individuals undergoing therapy for impaired mobility. One of the driving forces of this research is that many of the commercially available tools to measure mobility are designed for unimpaired individuals and only report limited information such as steps and calories – Dr. Albert uses machine learning to tailor systems to monitor and track individual patient populations and more specific movements with direct experience with Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, lower-limb amputation, stroke – at lately tracking toddler activity as well. He also incorporates these tailored recognition systems into complete end-to-end systems designed to collect, analyze, and succinctly report to clinicians.
books to make an efficient coding understanding of neuroscience accessible to students with minimal programming 5) Predict surgical outcomes across the Shriners hospital network of Motion Analysis Centers to inform decision making 6) Predicting spasticity scores from a wearable device rather than clinician judgement 7) Detecting Parkinson’s biomarkers through measured quiet standing and a separate study measuring pupil dilation in response to light. In short, a series of studies both creating data-driven machine learning models and deploying them to inform clinical care. Despite being at UNT starting in Fall 2019, Dr. Albert’s lab is quite active with the following products in 2020 alone: 7 papers, 13 research presentations/posters at national conferences, a launchpad product presentation (finalist), and an awarded patent. We look forward to seeing the research results and products of the Biomed AI lab over the new few years. Feel free to follow the lab on social media with links available at http:// biomed-AI.com/news.
The individual projects are quite varied and include 1) Creating a tailored summary metric for assessing outcomes for a microprocessor-controlled knee 2) Creating an inexpensive robot to track and encourage patient rehabilitation at home 3) Deep learning models for accurate pre-fall detection to inflate a wearable airbag to mitigate impact 4) Mobile apps and Jupyter note-
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The Human Movement Performance Laboratory
The Human Movement Performance lab is led by Dr. Rita M. Patterson. She is a professor in the department of Family and Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine and associate Dean for the school of medicine at the University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC) in Fort Worth as well as an adjunct professor it the UNT Biomedical Engineering department since its inception. Dr. Patterson has research experience with specific training and expertise in applied research in Orthopaedics, human performance, and rehabilitation. Much of her work has been applying engineering principles to medical problems, learning the language of the clinician and gaining valuable clinical knowledge to be able to translate between medical and technical disciplines. Dr. Patterson has a unique perspective that can bridge and facilitate technology development in clinical settings and applications. In the department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston TX, she had a successful partnership for 20 years with a hand surgeon investigating the anatomic, biomechanics and kinematics of the carpal bones and the upper extremity. She also worked closely with upper extremity physical therapists and rehabilitation science specialists to understand hand function. At UNTHSC she is part of the Human Movement Performance Lab which is a collaboration between several departments and schools in Fort Worth that are interested in human performance. Their team works together to understand biomechanics and kinematics in the neuro-musculo-skeletal system. This diverse team of engineers, physicians, therapists, neuroscientists and experimental psychologists come together to answer clinically meaningful questions that can help make people’s lives better. Through video motion capture, virtual reality environments, custom instrumentation and computational modeling we analyze abnormal motions due to disease processes and
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evaluate rehabilitation treatments. Unique aspects of our system are that we increase the physical difficulty using our instrumented treadmill that can provide for inclined and declined walking. With the combination of the virtual reality system we can also incorporate cognitive tasks to challenge our participants.
Student Spotlight Reagan Stewart
R
eagan is currently a senior undergraduate student studying biomedical engineering and specializing in bioinstrumentation. She graduated from Waxahachie High School in 2017, entering the UNT engineering program in 2018. Reagan is on track to graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering, including a minor in Mathematics as well as Electrical Engineering, and has been recognized for her academic accomplishments, making the UNT President's List every semester since enrolling as a freshman in the fall of 2017. This past spring of 2020, Reagan was admitted into the UNT Biomedical Engineering GradTrack Program and began taking classes toward her master's degree this fall. Over the summer, she worked as an intern in the Human Movement Performance Lab at the UNT Health & Science Center, where she was responsible for creating a statistical parametric mapping (SPM) analysis learning module for future students as well as applying SPM analysis to ballet data, comparing the differences between male and female movement. Today, Reagan is a research assistant at the UNT Micro & Nanoengineering research lab, where she currently assists in the preparation and assembly of lung chip devices. Back in the classroom, Reagan, along with the rest of her senior design team, Bio-TRAK, and their sponsors, DUALAMS Inc., are hard at work designing a new device that will one day change the way medical teams test drug delivery. Outside of her busy course schedule, Reagan is a member of the biomedical engineering department's student advisory board and the founding President of UNT's National Biomedical Engineering Honors Society.
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Where Are They Now? Alumni Spotlight: Brittany Mooney, B.S. Graduate “As a Clinical Robot Operator at Diligent Robotics, a startup company based in Austin, Texas, I work alongside hospital staff and our engineering team while operating our cutting-edge hospital assistant robot, named Moxi. I have several roles and responsibilities to ensure that our hospital partners’ expectations are always met or exceeded. My responsibilities include: Monitoring and safely operating Moxi in a hospital environment, at various hospitals; Collecting data and troubleshooting in a variety of real-world situations, while simultaneously providing detailed and accurate feedback to our remote engineers; Prioritizing customer experience, ensuring their expectations are always met or exceeded; Deploying hardware and software updates; Communicating with hospital staff and, occasionally, the public regarding robot operation; Contributing to core development by solving bugs, improving robot robustness, and building the next generation of teleoperation tools. Clinical Robot Operators are a crucial part at Diligent Robotics, as we are the “boots on the ground” - Educating nurses and hospital staff on how to use Moxi; Increasing Moxi’s utilization and thus increasing nurses’ time and focus on the patient; Learning various hospital workflows; Brainstorming and actively discussing new developmental features based on the customers’ needs; and continuously providing feedback to our engineers to optimize Moxi’s beneficial features. Working at Diligent Robotics allows me to utilize my Biomedical Engineering background and further develop several soft skills, each and every day. Furthermore, being a part of this startup company allows me to gain valuable insight on business development and a variety of real-world engineering applications and workflows. The best part about working at Diligent Robotics is working closely with various sectors of the company and always feeling valued and appreciated.”
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More than 30 of our graduates are currently working in industry! They Are At: HealthTrackRx
DUALAMS, Inc
Alcon
Wpromote
QRS Solutions
Texas Instruments
Zimmer Biomet
Powell Industries
Agiliti
Medtronic
Orthofix
Lockheed Martin
Diligent Robotics
Abbott
Texas Health Resources
Biomerics
We currently have 13 students that have returned and are enrolled to get their Master’s degree at UNT! We currently have 8 graduates who are enrolled in other graduate or medical schools! They Are At: Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Johns Hopkins University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
University of Texas at Arlington
University of Texas at El Paso
Florida Institute of Technology 16
Website: biomedical.engineering.unt.edu Phone: (940) 565-3338