Tracy Cheung, BE'10, is a member of the Cornell University Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (CUAUV) Team that earned first place in the 12th annual competition in San Diego, August, 2009. Cornell Chronicle Story. Tracy also received a 1st place win in the IBE Research Poster contest at the association's annual meeting gin Santa Clara, CA, Spring 2009. Tracy's poster nabbed 2nd place at Cornell's IBE student chapter's 7th annual BioEXPO, March, 2009. Her poster is titled "BAEC proliferation on variably compliant polyacrylamide gels" (Tracy's research was done with the Dept of Biomedical Engineering). Congratulations, Tracy! [BE, concentration: Biomedical Engineering, CoE]
Alyssa Henning, BE'10, is active in Cornell's Phoenix Society, CUWinds, and iGEM. See more in her College of Engineering Student Profile. [BE, CoE]
Jessica Wind, BE'10, is taking two minors and manages Cornell's football team. See more in her College of Engineering Student Profile. [BE, Concentration: Biomedical, Minor: Business, CoE]
Stephen Linderman, BE'10, is a Rawlings Presidential Research Scholar from Rome, N.Y. He was also named a 2009 Goldwater Scholar. He is working with the DeLisa Research Group at Cornell to develop and use a reporter system that correlates protein interactions to growth on ampicillin and to characterize and engineer protein-protein interactions. He is the administrative director and sings bass in the a cappella group, The Class Notes. He is a member of the National Scholars Honor Society, the Golden Key International Honor Society, and was a 2008 recipient of Cornell's Greek Scholars of the Year Award. [BE, Concentration: Biomedical, CALS]
Carli Flynn, BE/EnvE'09, has pursued many interests in her time at Cornell; such as sustainable engineering, animal activism, and Spanish theater performances. She spent her entire junior year abroad in Santander, Spain with the first year of College of Engineering's Cornell-Cantabria exchange. She also went to Chiapas, Mexico with IARD 4010 which "taught me more in two weeks than any other class at Cornell". See more in Carli's CoE profile. Carli had a paper published in The Triple Helix (The International Journal of Science, Society , and Law), "Factory Farms and the Environmental and Health Consequences". Carli plans to go to graduate school at Carnegie Mellon studying Civil and Environmental Engineering. [BE/EnvE double major, concentration: Bioenvironmental Engineering, CoE]
Lauren Dugard, BE'09, spent her junior and senior years working in Professor Antje Baeumner's Bioanalytical Microsystems & Biosensors lab. She will be joining Johnson&Johnson's internship program after graduation, taking her first assignment in Puerto Rico. Lauren's research project was entitled "Adhesive contact printing for PMMA and glass in biosensing Microfluidic devices". [BE, CoE]
Scott Hayes, BE'09, sings baritone in Cornell's a cappella group, Class Notes. He also has spent his junior and senior years working in Professor Antje Baeumner's Bioanalytical Microsystems & Biosensors lab. [BE, concentration: Biomedical Engineering, CoE]
Tara Holter, BE'09, was co-chair of the Engineering Ambassadors this year, and is a member of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society. She spent her junior and senior years working in Professor Antje Baeumner's Bioanalytical Microsystems & Biosensors lab. Tara will be attending medical school at SUNY Upstate Medical College after graduation. [BE, concentrations: Bioprocess, Biomedical, CoE]
Ben Pen Jui Hung, BE'09, has distinguished himself during his Cornell experience with research. His work, with the Department of Biomedical Engineering, is on chondrocyte and mesenchymal stem cell adhesion to cartilage. He has two publications in conference proceedings. Not content with staying in the lab, Ben has also collected impressive teaching experience, as a teaching assistant in Biochemistry, Computer Science, and Heat/Mass Transfer, as well as with the CoE's Academic Excellence Workshops in Multivariable Calculus, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra. [BE, concentration: Biomedical Engineering, CoE]
Becky Katz, BE/EnvE'09, has taken advantage of numerous opportunities, including an engineering COOP at Woodard & Curran, research in Cornell's Zinder Anaerobic Microbial Lab, and Tongoarrio National Park in Taupo, New Zealand. Becky has also taken part in Alternative Spring Breaks; volunteering in NYC at a homeless shelter, volunteering with SewGreen, an Ithaca group encouraging sustainability through fashion, and working with AquaClara, a CEE design team working on water treatment plants for towns in Honduras. Becky will be going to graduate school at KAUST in Saudi Arabia. Becky states "opportunities have presented themselves to me because of Cornell's incredible research and connections". [BE/EnvE double major, concentration: Bioenvironmental Engineering, CALS]
Colette Kopon, BE'09, has served as president of the CUWinds ensemble group this year. She has been to Costa Rica twice on music/service tours, bringing donated instruments and providing musical instruction and performances for 'high-need' areas. Another service project Colette helps with is 'service through music ambitions' to an Ithaca school and one in Philadelphia. Ezra Story. Colette performs on the euphonium, which looks like a small tuba and sounds similar to a french horn or trombone. Colette took one semester of Study Abroad in Perugia, Italy, and speaks fluent Italian. Rounding out her Cornell experience is research work, with the AguaClara program in CEE and with BEE Professor Beth Ahner on ligands produced by certain types of algae that bind heavy metals. Colette is a counselor with the Empathy, Assistance & Referral Service for students (EARS), and took Wilderness Reflections Guide Training. Colette is an Engineering Global Fellow. Colette will be teaching High School math after graduation. [BE, concentration: Bioprocess Engineering, CALS]
Konstantin Kovtun, BE'09, is a founding member of the Cornell Student Society for Public Health, an organization created to discuss and promote awareness about healthcare infrastructure issues and epidemiological trends that are affecting countries around the world. He currently serves as Technology Secretary for the group. Konstantin found a home at Cornell after his program at Tulane University, New Orleans, was displaced due to Hurricane Katrina. He did a coop at Merck and an Internship at Genzyme Corporation, including collaborating on an industry publication. He has taken courses at Tulane, Tufts, and Harvard, and speaks fluent Russian. Konstantin is planning to attend medical school at Harvard. [BE, concentration: Biomedical, CoE]
Julie Leviter, BE'09, is the deserving recipient of a 2009 Merrill Presidential Scholars Program Award. Merrill Scholars are graduating Cornell seniors who have demonstrated outstanding scholastic achievement, strong leadership ability, and the potential for contributing to society. Merrill Scholars are asked to recognize the Cornell faculty member who most significantly contributed to their college experience, and Julie has selected BEE Professor Mike Walter for that honor (see Julie's Merrill Scholar Essay here). Julie studied abroad for one semester in Edinburgh, Scotland, and completed internships at L'Oreal and the NIH. She has been doing research in BEE in the Baeumner lab and is a TA. Julie has also taken advantage of many extracurricular activities, including a part in the Cornell production 'Mass' at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts and spending Spring Break 2008 working in New Orleans on a Katrina relief effort. Cornell Chronicle Story. Julie is planning to attend medical school at Weill-Cornell. [BE, concentration: Biomedical Engineering, CoE]
Stacey Ohara, BETech'09, became Cornell's first-ever USAG individual national champion on beam with a superb 9.850 score at the 2009 USA Gymnastics Women's Collegiate Championships. Big Red Athletics Story. Stacey also received "Cornell Athlete of the Week" honors. [Biological Engineering Technology, Minor: Business, CALS]
Naweed Paya, BE'09, founded the Cornell Journal of Undergraduate Research, featuring scientific publications from undergraduates doing original research in various departments across the university (Naweed is currently 
serving as president for the journal). The journal includes peer-review by the faculty members in the department related to that research. Naweed also started the project team Genetically Engineered Machines. Cornell Chronicle Story. The team will be completing a synthetic biology project and participate in the annual international Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition. Naweed is also Co-president of Cornell's IBE Chapter, and was very involved with this year's BioExpo. Naweed will be working on his Master of Engineering in Systems Engineering at Cornell after graduation. [BE/ECE double major, concentration: Biomedical, CoE]
Nadia Siles, BE'09, as director of corporate affairs for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, raised $10,000 to help send engineering students to conferences. Her work did not stop there, however, as she performed research with the Solar Oven Team in Ocotal, Nicaragua and CEE's AquaClara program, interned at UW-Madison, studied abroad in Spain, and was Editor-in-Chief of the La Lucha school newspaper (La Associacion Latina) for two years. See more in Nadia's CoE profile. [BE, CoE]
Sarah Villarreal, BE'09, has done community service with the Society of Women Engineers, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Loaves and Fishes, Encouraging Young Engineering Students, CUEmpower and Engineering Ambassadors. Sarah's research experience includes in the Varner lab, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Kochian lab in Plant Nutrition. Sarah was on the Dean's List for three semesters. Sarah is planning to go on to medical school after a year of research. See her Senior Profile in the Chronicle. [BE, concentration: Biomedical, CoE]
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Jan Ma BEE'07 Took 1st place in the IBE Undergraduate Poster contest with "Kinetic and Efficacy Analysis of RNA Interference in Stably and Transiently Expressing Cell Lines" covering research she is doing with Prof. Putnam in Biomedical Engineering. |
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Shannon Wheeler BEE'07 Shannon won 1st place in the IBE Bioethics Essay Contest for Students. Her subject was "Perceptions of the Public: The Morals of Sharing our Motives as Bioengineers" |
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Gwen Owens BEE'07 Received an honorable mention in the IBE Bioethics Essay Contest for Students. Gwen's subject was "Ethics of Human Experimentation". |
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Prisca Grace BEE'07 Prisca Grace is a Class of 2007 Banner Bearer. Prisca has also received the Academic Excellence Award and was awarded a full tuition fellowship for an M.Eng. through CoE. |
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Elana Fisher BEE'07 Received an honorable mention in the IBE Bioethics Essay Contest for Students. Elana's subject was "The Ethics of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research". |
In Their Own Words ...
Meet some of the undergraduate and graduate students who are majoring in BEE.
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Molly Lebowitz '07 Biological Engineering, Environmental Engineering View profile |
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Sarah Phillips '07 Biological Engineering View profile |
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Laura Zheng '08 |
In Their Own Words ...
Meet some of our Alumni:
Student: Yolanda Tseng, BE '03
Major: Biological Engineering with a minor in Biomedical Engineering
Currently in MD program in Health Science and Technology at Harvard Medical School and MIT (joint program with research focus)
Specialization: Radiation Oncology
In High School, I enjoyed math and science, and, more importantly, I liked being able to apply what I learned. Science unfolded before me not only as a representation of nature’s elegant simplicity, but also as a challenge to channel nature’s power into innovative solutions relevant to our lives. Therefore, studying biological engineering seemed a logical next step. ~~ I found Cornell and the BEE program a resource-rich environment. The flexibility of the program suited my several interests. As a sophomore I joined Prof Luo’s lab. It was a pivotal experience, as it opened me to the possibility of pursuing research and academia as a career. More important than the facts I learned in my classes, I was taught how to critically think about problems. I believe this arose form my multi-disciplinary experiences in the class and in the lab. It is something I still use today as a medical student, and something I believe I will continue to use in the future as a physician. The mentorship I received was invaluable and ultimately shaped my current path. I was encouraged to pursue my immediate interests while focusing on the bigger picture. ~~ As I finish my last year of medical school, I am reminded how much I draw from my undergraduate training. My medical training program encourages us to think critically. I think trained engineers with research experience approach medical problems from a different perspective. We learn based on our curiosity of why and how certain things happen.