San Antonio, Texas
June 10, 2012
June 10, 2012
June 13, 2012
2153-5965
Impacts on Engineering Education Through Collaborative Learning, Project-based, and Service-learning
International
18
25.833.1 - 25.833.18
10.18260/1-2--21590
https://peer.asee.org/21590
438
Jay Bhatt received a M.S. in library and information science and M.S. in electrical and computer engineering from Drexel University. Some of his interest areas include collection development in engineering, outreach to faculty and students, and teaching engineering information research skills to faculty and students. He is the the 2010 recipient of the Homer I. Bernhardt Distinguished Service award from ASEE’s Engineering Libraries Division and the 2003 recipient of Drexel University’s Harold Myers Distinguished Service Award.
Marko Dimiskovski is a B.S./M.S. senior at Drexel University's School of Biomedical Engineering, Science, and Health Systems, with a concentration in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. He conducts research at the Spinal Cord Research Center at Drexel College of Medicine, involving gait analysis. He is a participant in the Drexel weServe student-run program, which has initiatives in serving health communities local and globally. He has traveled to Mozambique, Africa, as a biomedical engineer serving in a rural hospital during the 2011 summer and is currently a Child Life volunteer at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Lastly, he has prospects of going into medicine as a profession.
Vanessa Lin is currently a senior at Drexel University pursuing at B.S./M.S. degree in the School of Biomedical Engineering and Health Systems. Aside from her weServe experience in the Gambia, Lin has also had volunteer experiences tutoring inner-city middle school students within the city of Philadelphia. She has a personal interest in medicine and has participated in the pre-medical volunteer program at the
hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Pareshkumar Brahmbhatt is an undergraduate student of physics, currently in the fourth year. Every year of college included some sort of community outreach through the Society of Physics Students, until Brahmbhatt stumbled upon an opportunity to extend volunteerism internationally through the weServe Program. Brahmbhatt's love for equipment repair came from a robotics hobby that was seeded in high school, but blossomed at Drexel University. Brahmbhatt's former membership in Civil Air Patrol gave the drive to continue giving back to the community even years after the fact. The Drexel University weServe program was able to combine both passions into a single outlet activity which definitely changed Brahmbhatt's life for the better.
Shirin Karsan graduated with a master's of bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics. Her research interest is in the cultural and religious perspectives in the ethics of emerging biotechnologies for which she was awarded a Fulbright grant to conduct research at the United Arab Emirates University. She is the Special Projects Manager in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science, and Health Systems at Drexel University, and Director of the local and international weServe Program, currently established in the Gambia and Mozambique, (Africa), for which the weServe program recently received a student leadership award from the Jenzabar Foundation. She is a summa cum laude graduate from Thomas Jefferson University with a B.S. in diagnostic imaging. She has presented at MESA, the International Conference on Islam and Bioethics in Turkey, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Youth Camp in Dubai, and on nanotechnology at the 2009 Kenexa World Conference. Karsan also serves as a member of the board of the Global Bioethics Initiative, which concentrates on raising awareness of bioethical issues at local, state, national, and international levels.
Alexa Karkenny, student Co-founder of weServe Africa, traveled to Chicuque Rural Hospital and Maputo Central Hospital in Mozambique in 2009. She has been an active participant in weServe since its inception and has advocated for the program in numerous settings, including at the U.S. Department of State. Karkenny graduated from Drexel University School of Biomedical Engineering, Science, and Health Systems in 2010 with a B.S. in biomedical engineering. She will graduate from Drexel University College of Medicine in 2014 with an M.D., and she aspires to become a pediatric surgeon.
International Biomedical Engineering Education through collaborative Student Service-learning experiencesIn 2009, two students from University’s School of Biomedical Engineering, Science andHealth Systems (BIOMED) initiated the weServe Program (weServe).weServe’s mission is to provide students with hands-on experiences to utilize biomedicalengineering in underrepresented and underserved communities. Since then, student participationin the program has increased and weServe dedicates its efforts to both local and globalinitiatives, and creates partnerships to develop lifesaving and life enhancing solutions throughinnovative service. With a focus on experiential learning, students are given the opportunity toimmerse in communities, learn to identify their needs, and apply their academic educationaltraining in real-world scenarios. On a global scale, the program is expanding and has developedworking relationships with hospitals in The Gambia and Mozambique. The progress and efficacyof service projects that students participated in The Gambia and Mozambique will be analyzed.Additionally, the impact in gaps of service visits, due to academic schedules and lack of financialresources will be discussed. The status of biomedical engineering in The Gambia andMozambique will be referenced, and ethical issues that relate to service in developing countrieswill be addressed.weServe aims to bridge the gap that exists between the developing world and others by providingservice, time and donated educational material. Future work will involve advancing towardscloud-based services with University Libraries. This partnership will help impart information-gathering research skills to students through face to face and virtual consultations, onlinetutorials, instructional sessions, and providing research help as needed. This will allow anincrease in accessibility of educational resources in healthcare, hospitals, and engineeringinstrumentation in addition to usual biomedical engineering related work by students andhospital staff alike. In turn it will decrease discontinuity between on-site visits, allowing the hosthospitals to keep up with current trends in education and narrow the disparity between thedeveloping and developed countries. The weServe international engineering service learningprogram has presented immense opportunities for students to develop international researchpartnerships as well as projects in biomedical engineering that can be translated to low incomeand low resource communities.
Bhatt, J. J., & Dimiskovski, M., & Lin, V., & Brahmbhatt, P. C., & Karsan, S., & Karkenny, A. J. (2012, June), International Biomedical Engineering Education through Collaborative Student Service-learning Experiences Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--21590
ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015