Heather DiFazio ’23
Heather DiFazio, a triple major in biomedical engineering, German and mathematics, first studied and researched antibodies in Germany at the Technische Universität Braunschweig and then contributed to the development of CT detector assembly processes while interning at Siemens Healthineers in Forchheim. DiFazio received a significant Beatrice S. Demers Fellowship and other scholarships that helped fund her year abroad. She then was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Research Award, which allowed her to join the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research at the University of Bern in Switzerland following graduation. Her research there will involve developing an AI module for a surgical device that differentiates between healthy and tumorous tissues on an individualized basis, relying heavily on the German language skills she acquired while participating in the IEP. She joined the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology (HST) program in fall 2025 to pursue a PhD in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics.
Kevin Suggs ’23
Kevin Suggs studied computer engineering and Japanese, traveling to Japan as a fifth-year IEP student to study at Kyushu University in Fukuoka. During his subsequent internship at Shimadzu’s headquarters in Kyoto, Suggs improved the performance of industrial and medical analytical instruments through the design and implementation of firmware updates and GUI applications. Having had no formal experience with Japanese before URI, he sought out activities such as conversation hours and book club meetings to sharpen his skills, later serving as a Japanese tutor. Prior to studying abroad, he also translated for a visiting Japanese engineer from Shimadzu during an installation of a new electron probe microanalyzer at URI. Suggs secured substantial funding for his year abroad from several highly competitive scholarships, including a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, a Boren Award and a Demers Fellowship, among others. Following graduation, Suggs became an engineer for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. His future plans include working for a global company where he can leverage his linguistic skills.
JoJo Speredelozzi ’23
JoJo Speredelozzi majored in biomedical engineering, Italian and biology while participating in the IEP. At URI, she worked Italian and STEM topics into her life through media consumption and academic projects, roomed with an Italian exchange student at the IEP LLC, completed research with the URI Neural Rehabilitation Lab, and more. With the help of a Teodoro R. Diaco Excellence Scholarship, Speredelozzi studied for a semester at the Parthenope University of Naples and later interned with ASL Naples, where her clinical engineering work included managing health technology needs for Italian hospitals and the installation of new machines. She is now pursuing a PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, with a specific research interest in language acquisition and auditory processing in the brain.