Katie Brown is passionate about helping people. As a biomedical engineer, she intends to help improve the lives of many applying the skills she’s learned at URI Engineering. Her experience in the International Engineering Program (IEP) and travels to Chile showed her the global need for affordable and accessible health care options.

She says, Chile definitely opened her eyes to the differences between cultures and the opportunities available to others. Although she notes that most of her technical skills were learned here at URI, she learned the most about herself in her year in Chile. Exposure she had to the poverty and inaccessibility of resources taken for granted in Western countries affected her deeply and influenced many of her future goals.

Her major projects while here at URI have included a team project developing an eye-motion controlled arm for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patients and a senior capstone project involving a modified-ride on toy for children with a range of mobility problems from cerebral palsy. Both of these projects were brought to the Rhode Island Elevator Pitch Contest in 2015. The ALS eye-motion arm pitch, presented at the competition, won.

Following graduation, she is looking forward to working with Abiomed, a Massachusetts company that creates temporary catheter-based heart pumps and will be working to improve their automated control interface. However, she hopes one day to be able to bring more affordable health care options to people in developing countries and improve accessibility in regions where access is difficult.

Her passion and commitment to excellence and her high level of academic achievement over the course of the five year IEP program, through both majors in Biomedical Engineering and Spanish, were honored by being named the recipient of the University of Rhode Island College of Engineering Excellence Award in Biomedical Engineering.

This student received a 2016 University of Rhode Island College of Engineering Excellence award in their field of study. We are honoring this achievement by profiling them individually and looking at what makes each of them someone to look for big things from in the years ahead.