Congratulations to Maximilian Diaz, Best Graduate Oral Presentation Awardee
Congratulations to Clinton Smith, Best Graduate Poster Presentation Awardee
Thank you to everyone who participated in our 12th Annual Pruitt Research Day! This successful v event included student talks, keynote speakers and poster presentations in celebration of the wonderful research being conducted in the department and the BME community.
Event photos are here.
We hold our celebration near the birth date of Dr. J. Crayton Pruitt Sr. whose vision and generosity helped found the department. Dr. Pruitt was always most excited to hear about and discuss the achievements and research being conducted by our students.
The Keynote speaker was Drs. Scott A. Banks and Shannon Brown Fedenko. Dr. Banks is professor by Courtesy in the University of Florida Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, with appointments in Biomedical Engineering, and Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine. He received bachelor and master of science degrees in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University, and the doctor of philosophy degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been active in orthopaedics and joint mechanics research his entire career. He is a member of professional societies including ASME, the Knee Society, and the Orthopaedic Research Society. Scott served as President and conference host for the International Society for Technology in Arthroplasty in 2013. Scott has coauthored 200 peer-reviewed journal papers which have been cited over 7400 times (Web of Science h-index 46). He holds numerous medical device patents, resulting in over $2 million in royalties to the University of Florida. In additional to mentoring engineering students, Scott has mentored 40 orthopaedic surgeons as long-term research fellows. He continues to work with several startups and established medical device companies and has designed joint replacement implants that have been used in over 250,000 patients. Scott loves sharing his excitement for engineering in the classroom and has been named the MAE and College of Engineering Teacher of the Year, as well as the student-selected Faculty Lecturer (twice).
Dr. Brown Fedenko is a double gator, with a BS in Agricultural & Biological Engineering and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering. Before starting her doctoral degree, Shannon worked in Process Development for the tissue banking industry, where she discovered her love of regenerative medicine. She returned to UF to pursue a doctoral degree where she researched nano-scale drug delivery under the supervision of Dr. Blanka Sharma. After graduate school, Shannon joined a Gainesville-based start-up company to develop regenerative medicine and cell-isolation technologies. On the side, Shannon volunteers as a veterinary technician and runs an agricultural business.
We had six student talks and 37 poster presentations this year. Faculty members judged the posters and selected finalists. Thank you to all the students who worked hard preparing for your presentations. Thank you to Dr. Kyle Allen for his assistance as session chair and a special thanks to our faculty judges!