Thank you to everyone who participated in our 2nd Annual Pruitt Research Day! We had a successful event which included a full day of student talks, keynote speakers and poster presentations in celebration of the wonderful research being conducted in the department and the BME community.
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. Dr. Pruitt himself was not only a renowned cardiothoracic surgeon but also an inventor of numerous catheters and instruments for use in cardiovascular surgery that include his co-invention of the Pruitt-Inahara shunt – still one of the world’s most popular shunts used during carotid endarterectomy. You can read more about Dr. Pruitt here: http://www.bme.ufl.edu/about/J-Crayton-Pruitt-Sr.
A special thank you to Dr. J. Crayton Pruitt Jr. and Natalie Pruitt for joining us on this important day! They took the time to speak individually with students during breaks and gave several of them the opportunity to explain more about their research during the poster session.
In addition, we were privileged to hear from two keynote speakers this year. Jamie Grooms, CEO of the Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research, focused on ways to maximize your potential while Jeffrey Fitzsimmons, Entrepreneur and Professor in the Department of Radiology, focused on the art and science of building a successful start-up company. Thank you both for sharing your inspiring stories!
Lastly, thank you to our student presenters! Jason Pukala from Dr. Frank Bova’s lab won the award for best oral presentation and Jun Yin from Dr. Yiider Tseng’s lab won for best poster presentation.
Thank you again to everyone who was engaged in Pruitt Research Day! This is important for the Department, UF and the BME community.
Please visit our Flickr page to view all the photos from this event and our YouTube page to watch the BME Video which we debuted on Pruitt Research Day!
