Biomedical Student Team Selected as Winners in Design Competition

Photo courtesy of Samantha Stubbs

The U of A biomedical engineering team that successfully competed at the Coulter College workshop.

Little Rock-born Wallace H. Coulter revolutionized the biomedical field, leaving a lasting legacy that continues to impact the field of medicine. This past August, six U of A biomedical engineering students got the chance to attend the Coulter College workshop competition and leave a lasting impact of their own.

The Coulter College workshop seeks to teach commercialization, and equip students with the skills to turn medical devices into products, further developing the technical design that is emphasized in the classroom. Timothy Muldoon and Jeffrey Wolchok, both assistant professors of biomedical engineering, worked with a team of six senior capstone design students — Alex Khang, Kristina Maxwell, Samantha Stubbs, Seth Washispack, Syd Wiggins, and Mason Young — at the workshop and competition, which was held in Miami Florida. According to the foundation’s website, participants were projected to leave the program with an understanding of “how to balance providing clinical benefits alongside a viable commercial model,” but Muldoon explained that the team members learned even more than that. 

Team member Samantha Stubbs, a senior biomedical engineering major, described the experience as having “opened our eyes, as well as our professors’ eyes to this whole other side of things that students need to be exposed to before entering this industry.” The theme of this three day workshop and competition was “idea to product,” and students practiced problem solving skills to improve and develop existing products.

Through a variety of workshops, the team learned about the manufacturing side of the equation, then they put together a presentation and competed against other universities. Their technical skills, coupled with some late night grit and ingenuity led them to be one of three winning teams. Stubbs raved about the experience, skills and connections her team had gained, and said she only wished that the experience had “lasted a little longer.”