Alex Ochs is a first year PhD student. Read more to learn about how he found his passion for biology and human health, despite facing challenges coming to BioE with a background in mechanics gained during his Master’s studies, and how he finds work-life balance at school.

After wrapping up the second year of the Humans of UW Bioengineering blog, recent B.S. grads Vanessa Nguyen and Samantha Sun reflect on their motivation to become involved in the project and how they found inspiration in working with their fellow students to share their stories.

Senior Timothy Bi, part of the Daggett lab, talks about his experience in UW BioE and UW Academy. He sees med school in his future, but is planning to work for a few years and figure out his next steps.

Senior Yiming Li talks about her research investigating the blood protein Von Willebrand factor (VWF) to better understand how to better control blood clotting, and how a sports injury led her to discover bioengineering. She reflects on how the BioE undergrad cohort system enhanced her experience in the major, and her hopes to pursue health care solutions for low-resource settings in her master's degree study at Cornell.

Senior Robyn Langevin talks about her work in the Seelig synthetic biology lab on a new diagnostic that detects differential gene expression associated with cancer or autoimmune disorders. She also discusses the importance of academic outreach and giving back to the community, and how personal struggles helped her gain perspective on her experience in BioE.

Luke is an undergraduate senior in bioengineering, and he has a long background before coming to UW as a non-traditional student. He balances school with running his own plumbing company, and you may recognize him as the father of our unofficial BioE mascot, Chinook. Read more about his story...

My name is Harrison. I do research in the Zheng Lab and I currently work at a cancer therapeutic company, Immune Design. After I graduate I will be attending the University of Michigan to pursue a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering.

I’m Adam and I am in Dr. Ruikang (Ricky) Wang’s lab. The lab does OCT (optical coherence tomography) research. The goal of my  capstone is to design an image processing tool for the lab. After I graduate, I am going for a Ph.D at Purdue University because I want the freedom that a Ph.D. offers to choose what I research. I might go into academia afterwards.

I’m Kim, and I’m in the GRID/Neural Systems lab. My project is about restoring tactile feedback through electrocorticography grids (ECoG) via the somatosensory cortex, or more simply put, how to make people feel again. After graduation, I’ll be traveling in Europe just for fun. I think this will be the last time I’ll get to travel for an extended period without having to worry about school or jobs. Afterwards, I’ll be working in ultrasound systems at Philips as a software engineer.

In addition to his research in Dr. Xiaohu Gao's lab and work on a team design project, senior Brian Gao is a member of the BioE Mental Health Initiative – an honors project focused on improving the state of mental health in the department through grassroots community-building.

Alyssa is an undergraduate senior in BioE, and is double-majoring in computer engineering. She is working in a biomechanics lab led by Dr. William Ledoux, where she investigates how certain joints are affected before and after ankle replacement surgery. She also is part of the Right Brain Campaign and volunteers at Seattle Children’s Hospital. Learn more about her experiences at UW and how she balances all of her activities.