Whiting Biomedical Design Studio funded

The Gateway Science Initiative Committee has awarded a total of $210,000 to fund the Whiting Biomedical Design Studio (WBDS) — a collaborative learning space for the required freshman course, “Biomedical Modeling and Design.”

The funds were awarded based on the proposal of Department of Biomedical Engineering faculty Eileen Haase, Les Tung, Bob Allen, Youseph Yazdi, and Applied Biomedical Engineering lecturer, Elizabeth Logsdon. The funds will be used for investigatory travel and analysis of other institutions’ design studios, and to underwrite curriculum development, and purchase equipment and materials.

The Gateway Science Initiative Committee’s proposal evaluation was based on a full scope of outcome criteria. This included the potential to transform the quality of student learning; program alignment with instructional best practices; quality and clarity of the assessment plan; potential for sustainability, scalability or portability of results to other courses; support from the departments responsible for, or interdependent upon, impacted course content and proposed reforms; evidence of needs assessment; appropriateness of scope; and the cost effectiveness.

This vision is that the enhanced Whiting Biomedical Design Studio will provide an environment that supports teamwork, where students can create, collaborate, design, build, test, evaluate, and refine their experiments, designs, and prototypes. Dramatic improvement in the efficiency and quality of work are anticipated, starting with our freshman design course, and continuing through our CBID Master’s program.