This award provides support for a three year continuing award, a renewal of the Bioengineering and Bioinformatics Summer Institutes (BBSI) program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) entitled, "BBSI HST-MGH Summer Institute for Biomedical Optics," under the direction of Dr. Martha L. Gray. The Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) and the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) will host a nine week summer program for a total of 36 undergraduate and graduate students, 12 per year, for a total of three years.
The goal of this program is to raise undergraduate biological science and engineering students' awareness of biomedical engineering research, and specifically of biomedical optics, at a critical junction in their education. The program will include a didactic program in Biomedical Optics, a research experience in a Harvard- or MIT-affiliated research lab, professional development activities, and networking opportunities.
The HST-MGH Summer Institute in Biomedical Optics broadens each participant's future career options in expected and unexpected ways by exposing them to the novel field of biomedical optics. The students experience the scope and nature of biomedical optics research and participate in that research at an advanced level not generally available to undergraduates and are exposed to role models who have chosen research at the interface of biomedical engineering and clinical applications. In addition to its transforming effect on individual participants, this program has increased collaborations between HST's educational programs and researchers in hospital-based laboratories at MGH.
This project is being co-funded by the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS)/Office of Multidisiciplinary Activities (OMA) and the Division of Physics, the Directorate for Engineering (ENG)/Division of Engineering Education and Centers (EEC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB).
