BME graduate student Carmen Kut awarded the 2014 Sommerman Engineering Excellence in Teaching Award

Biomedical engineering MD/PhD student Carmen Kut has been selected to receive the 2014 George M. L. Sommerman Engineering Excellence in Teaching Award for Graduate Teaching Assistants at the Whiting School of Engineering. One teaching assistant is chosen each year to receive this prestigious award.

Carmen was chosen to receive the award based on her outstanding performance as a teaching assistant In Dr. Aleksander Popel’s Models and Simulations class, and Dr. Sridevi Sarma’s Systems and Control course. Carmen, mentored by Dr. Elliot McVeigh, Dr. Xingde Li and Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, began working as teaching assistant in 2011.

Kut was selected by a subcommittee of Tau Beta Pi, who drew upon student and faculty nominations. The award consists of a plaque and a cash award of $1,000 which will be presented in at the annual Whiting School of Engineering Convocation Awards Ceremony in May in Shriver Hall.

Carmen also founded Medical & Educational Perspectives, Inc. (MEP) — a non-profit organization which provides an interdisciplinary platform for engineering, business and medical students to collaborate and develop feasible medical prototypes. In 2013 MEP was awarded Ph.D. Innovation Initiative funding from the JHU Office of the Provost as part of a program to support bold, new ideas that have potential to transform PhD education for the next generation. MEP currently hosts two JHU elective courses in medical entrepreneurship, with field evaluation in hospitals and companies in India.