MTU Junior Kaylee Meyers Awarded Goldwater Scholarship

For the second consecutive calendar year, a Michigan Tech college student has been awarded 1 of the
nation’s most prestigious undergraduate investigate scholarships.

Kaylee Meyers, a third-calendar year college student at Michigan Technological College, has gained
1 of the nation’s optimum accolades for higher education undergraduates. The biomedical engineering significant from Essexville, Michigan is the twelfth Michigan Tech college 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 Instruction Foundation, Goldwater scholarships are awarded to higher education sophomores and juniors. The awards
are based mostly on tutorial benefit, investigate encounter and intent to pursue a profession in
science, engineering or mathematics.

As portion of the variety procedure, colleges nominate up to 4 learners who intend
to pursue a profession in investigate and have at least a 3. GPA. As 1 of 396 recipients
selected from somewhere around five,000 nominees, Meyers will receive a financial award
to be used on expenses like tuition, books, and home and board for her senior calendar year.

Helping to Mend

Meyers formulated a “passion for engineering” while included with Initial Robotics in
superior university. “But I also genuinely preferred to function in the professional medical area, so biomedical
engineering was the perfect mix of the two,” she reported.

Meyers’ investigate focuses on engineered biomaterials. “More precisely, injectable
biomaterials that could be used to speed up wound therapeutic in injured tendons,” she
reported. 

“Kaylee’s function has led to novel knowledge regarding how injectable biomaterials can be
used to command mobile and molecular mechanisms included in tendon restore,” reported Meyer’s
investigate advisor, Rupak Rajachar, a principal lecturer in biomedical engineering at
Michigan Tech. “These conclusions are the foundation for 1 of two initial-writer manuscripts
she is at this time creating.”

Meyers’ second manuscript includes the benefits of her resourceful attempts to aid construct
a desk-leading ultrasound program for use in focused drug delivery from biomaterials. 

Meyers’ and Rajachar’s investigate was recently awarded a second grant from the Nationwide
Institutes of Wellness (NIH) to function on incorporating concentrated ultrasound into the investigate
via a collaborative undertaking with Michigan Tech alumnus Eli Vlaisavljevich, a past
Goldwater Scholarship receiver, member of the Engineered Biomaterials Lab group
and present college at Virginia Tech. 

In addition to the NIH grant and Goldwater Scholarship, Meyers’ investigate has gained
support from the Portage Wellness Foundation and the Charles Steger Global Internship
Award from the Focused Ultrasound Foundation. She reported these types of funding for undergraduate
investigate is important. 

“I consider outside funding is critical for the undergraduate investigate we do in the
lab, as it allows us to function on resolving genuinely exciting engineering complications,”
she reported. 

An Early Start out

Meyers’ Michigan Tech journey commenced at the University’s Summer time Youth Method (SYP).
When she initial set foot on campus in 2016, she couldn’t foresee the route she would
choose, but she realized from the start out she was at a specific place. 

“The summer season right after my junior calendar year of superior university, I attended MTU’s Females in Engineering
Method,” Meyers reported. “I uncovered a ton about engineering and had a possibility to check out
the campus and encompassing spot.”

A self-explained “avid outdoorswoman” who loves to hike, bike, ski, path operate and
kayak, she realized that Tech’s teachers and area would be a good match. A few months
later on, she uncovered that the “good fit” extended to the classroom and lab as properly.

“As a senior, I attended MTU Preview Day, wherever I satisfied my investigate advisor, Dr. Rajachar,
and his Engineered Biomaterials Lab group,” she reported. “Through them, I uncovered about
the shut campus group and what undergraduate investigate was like at Tech. It reinforced
my selection to appear here.”

Continuing a Happy Custom

Meyers is Michigan Tech’s fourth Goldwater Scholarship receiver in the past 5
yrs and the second consecutive MTU college student to be so honored. 3rd-calendar year organic
sciences significant Tessa Steenwinkel won the scholarship past calendar year.

Meyer’s prolonged-time period targets are to generate her PhD in biomedical engineering and eventually
operate a investigate lab of her have as a principal investigator and college professor. 

“I imagine Tech is pretty good at promoting students from all backgrounds in STEM fields,
specially via youth outreach and our supportive campus group.”Kaylee Meyers

Rajachar reported it is interesting to see the probable broader impact Meyers can have equally
as a graduate college student and future mentor to the following generation of learners in STEM
fields. 

“She acknowledges that the best gift any scientific mentor can deliver is their
time and an atmosphere that empowers youthful learners to imagine in challenging function and their
have skill to solve complications,” he reported.  

Meyers is in spectacular firm as the fifth Michigan Tech biomedical engineering
significant to receive a Goldwater Scholarship, much more than any other discipline 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 set up a laboratory establishing therapeutic
ultrasound equipment. 2012 scholarship receiver Hal Holmes is a guide engineer at Conservation
X Labs, establishing reducing-edge genetic testing engineering for conservation.

Rajachar is assured Meyers will dwell up to the superior typical set by her predecessors.
“I genuinely imagine that Kaylee can fulfill or exceed the achievement of any preceding college student
from my lab,” he reported. “I spotlight their achievements thus considerably as experts not
only to convey the importance of the Goldwater and the toughness of my belief in
Kaylee, but much more importantly to realize that every of them also serves as a mentor
to Kaylee, aiding her as she functions diligently towards meeting what I imagine is her
terrific promise as a scientist and engineer.”

When the time will come for Meyers to mentor learners of her have, she’ll replicate on her
private part design. “I want to thank my investigate advisor, Dr. Rajachar, for giving
me and lots of other learners the opportunity to get included in undergraduate investigate
in an encouraging and intellectually stimulating atmosphere,” she reported. “I am pretty
fortuitous to have him as a mentor.”

Michigan Technological College is a general public investigate college, residence to much more than
7,000 learners from fifty four nations around the world. Launched in 1885, the College features much more than
120 undergraduate and graduate degree systems in science and engineering, engineering,
forestry, business enterprise and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, and
social sciences. Our campus in Michigan’s Higher Peninsula overlooks the Keweenaw Waterway
and is just a few miles from Lake Superior.