MTU Junior Kaylee Meyers Awarded Goldwater Scholarship
For the 2nd consecutive yr, a Michigan Tech university student has been awarded just one of the
nation’s most prestigious undergraduate analysis scholarships.
Kaylee Meyers, a third-yr university student at Michigan Technological College, has gained
just one of the nation’s maximum accolades for school undergraduates. The biomedical engineering key from Essexville, Michigan is the 12th Michigan Tech university student to receive the
prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship.
Set up in 1989 by Congress to honor the late Arizona senator and administered
by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Training Basis, Goldwater scholarships are awarded to school sophomores and juniors. The awards
are centered on tutorial advantage, analysis encounter and intent to go after a profession in
science, engineering or mathematics.
As section of the range course of action, faculties nominate up to four learners who intend
to go after a profession in analysis and have at least a 3. GPA. As just one of 396 recipients
chosen from about five,000 nominees, Meyers will receive a money award
to be utilized on costs like tuition, guides, and room and board for her senior yr.
Helping to Mend
Meyers designed a “passion for engineering” whilst included with First Robotics in
higher school. “But I also seriously wanted to perform in the healthcare area, so biomedical
engineering was the excellent mix of the two,” she said.
Meyers’ analysis focuses on engineered biomaterials. “More specifically, injectable
biomaterials that could be utilized to speed up wound healing in wounded tendons,” she
said.
“Kaylee’s perform has led to novel data with regards to how injectable biomaterials can be
utilized to manage mobile and molecular mechanisms included in tendon repair service,” said Meyer’s
analysis advisor, Rupak Rajachar, a principal lecturer in biomedical engineering at
Michigan Tech. “These conclusions are the foundation for just one of two initial-author manuscripts
she is now producing.”
Meyers’ 2nd manuscript has the benefits of her innovative initiatives to support construct
a table-prime ultrasound method for use in focused drug supply from biomaterials.
Meyers’ and Rajachar’s analysis was recently awarded a 2nd grant from the National
Institutes of Wellbeing (NIH) to perform on incorporating centered ultrasound into the analysis
by means of a collaborative undertaking with Michigan Tech alumnus Eli Vlaisavljevich, a earlier
Goldwater Scholarship recipient, member of the Engineered Biomaterials Lab community
and existing faculty at Virginia Tech.
In addition to the NIH grant and Goldwater Scholarship, Meyers’ analysis has gained
assist from the Portage Wellbeing Basis and the Charles Steger World-wide Internship
Award from the Focused Ultrasound Basis. She said this sort of funding for undergraduate
analysis is very important.
“I think outdoors funding is necessary for the undergraduate analysis we do in the
lab, as it permits us to perform on solving seriously appealing engineering complications,”
she said.
An Early Start off
Meyers’ Michigan Tech journey commenced at the University’s Summer months Youth Application (SYP).
When she initial established foot on campus in 2016, she couldn’t foresee the path she would
acquire, but she realized from the start off she was at a exclusive put.
“The summer season after my junior yr of higher school, I attended MTU’s Females in Engineering
Application,” Meyers said. “I uncovered a lot about engineering and had a probability to investigate
the campus and encompassing region.”
A self-explained “avid outdoorswoman” who enjoys to hike, bicycle, ski, trail run and
kayak, she realized that Tech’s lecturers and location would be a great healthy. A number of months
later on, she identified that the “good fit” prolonged to the classroom and lab as perfectly.
“As a senior, I attended MTU Preview Working day, exactly where I achieved my analysis advisor, Dr. Rajachar,
and his Engineered Biomaterials Lab team,” she said. “Through them, I uncovered about
the near campus community and what undergraduate analysis was like at Tech. It bolstered
my decision to arrive below.”
Continuing a Very pleased Custom
Meyers is Michigan Tech’s fourth Goldwater Scholarship recipient in the earlier five
many years and the 2nd consecutive MTU university student to be so honored. 3rd-yr organic
sciences key Tessa Steenwinkel won the scholarship last yr.
Meyer’s prolonged-phrase targets are to generate her PhD in biomedical engineering and sooner or later
run a analysis lab of her own as a principal investigator and college professor.
“I consider Tech is extremely great at promoting students from all backgrounds in STEM fields,
specifically by means of youth outreach and our supportive campus community.”
Rajachar said it is interesting to see the opportunity broader influence Meyers can have both equally
as a graduate university student and foreseeable future mentor to the upcoming era of learners in STEM
fields.
“She acknowledges that the greatest gift any scientific mentor can supply is their
time and an atmosphere that empowers youthful learners to consider in really hard perform and their
own ability to remedy complications,” he said.
Meyers is in impressive company as the fifth Michigan Tech biomedical engineering
key to receive a Goldwater Scholarship, additional than any other willpower at the College,
and the third to be mentored by Rajachar.
Vlaisavljevich, who won the scholarship in 2009, is an assistant professor of biomedical
engineering at Virginia Tech and has established a laboratory acquiring therapeutic
ultrasound equipment. 2012 scholarship recipient Hal Holmes is a direct engineer at Conservation
X Labs, acquiring chopping-edge genetic tests engineering for conservation.
Rajachar is self-confident Meyers will live up to the higher standard established by her predecessors.
“I definitely consider that Kaylee can fulfill or exceed the achievement of any preceding university student
from my lab,” he said. “I emphasize their achievements therefore far as researchers not
only to convey the significance of the Goldwater and the energy of my belief in
Kaylee, but additional importantly to recognize that just about every of them also serves as a mentor
to Kaylee, assisting her as she will work diligently toward assembly what I consider is her
great assure as a scientist and engineer.”
When the time comes for Meyers to mentor learners of her own, she’ll mirror on her
particular position model. “I want to thank my analysis advisor, Dr. Rajachar, for supplying
me and lots of other learners the opportunity to get included in undergraduate analysis
in an encouraging and intellectually stimulating atmosphere,” she said. “I am extremely
fortunate to have him as a mentor.”
Michigan Technological College is a general public analysis college, household to additional than
7,000 learners from 54 nations around the world. Started in 1885, the College gives additional than
120 undergraduate and graduate diploma packages in science and engineering, engineering,
forestry, organization and economics, well being professions, humanities, mathematics, and
social sciences. Our campus in Michigan’s Higher Peninsula overlooks the Keweenaw Waterway
and is just a number of miles from Lake Remarkable.