Toward a Health Equity Spine Across Biomedical Engineering Curriculum:  A Faculty-Led Collaborative Autoethnography Exploring Lessons Learned

Ashley R Taylor; Kinsley Tate; Andre Albert Muelenaer; LaDeidra Monet Roberts; Christopher Arena; Sara L Arena

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Conference: 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Publication Date: June 22, 2025
Start Date: June 22, 2025
End Date: August 15, 2025
Conference Session: Innovative Approaches to Biomedical Engineering Education
Tagged Division: Biomedical Engineering Division (BED)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 18
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/57294

Paper Authors

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Ashley R Taylor Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University orcid.org/0000-0002-9412-5749

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Dr. Ashley Taylor (she/her) is a Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics at Virginia Tech. Her teaching and research focus on mobilizing engineering students to solve pressing real-world challenges through community-based participatory approaches. Taylor has partnered alongside communities in rural Appalachia, Nigeria, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, and Ethiopia to cultivate innovation ecosystems and provide hands-on experiential learning education opportunities at nine universities across sub-Saharan Africa and the United States. Together, collaborators from across these universities developed the Invention Education Toolkit (ive-toolkit.org), an open-access resource to support the transformation of engineering education in African universities to solve local and global challenges. Taylor received her Ph.D. in Engineering Education, MPH in Public Health Education, and MS and BS in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech.

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Kinsley Tate Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Kinsley Tate is an Instructor in the Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics department at Virginia Tech where she teaches courses related to cellular and tissue engineering. She received her BS in Engineering and MS in Biomedical Engineering at East Carolina University. She completed her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Virginia Tech.

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Andre Albert Muelenaer Jr Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics, Virginia Tech

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Professor of Practice-Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics & Professor of Pediatrics-Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, Virginia Tech. MS-Zoology, Virginia Tech; MD, Eastern Virginia Medical School; Pediatric Residency, William Beaumont Army Medical Center; Pediatric Pulmonology Fellowship, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Fellow, American Academy of Pediatrics and American Chest Society.

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LaDeidra Monet Roberts Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Christopher Arena Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Chris is a Collegiate Associate Professor at Virginia Tech in the Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics (BEAM) Department. He received his B.S. degree from the University of Virginia and Ph.D. degree from Virginia Tech, both in Biomedical Engineering. He teaches senior design, clinical needs assessment, and biodesign fundamentals. Chris is passionate about collaborations that facilitate student experiential learning opportunities and his research is focused on medical devices, with ongoing projects in the areas of lymphedema treatment, wound healing, and sensory neuroprosthetics.

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Sara L Arena Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Sara L. Arena received a B.S. in Engineering Science and Mechanics (2007), M.S. in Biomedical Engineering (2008), and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering (2011) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). She currently serves as the Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Program Chair and Collegiate Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics at Virginia Tech. Sara’s research within engineering education has focused on active learning strategies within foundational undergraduate courses, including cooperative, collaborative learning, and problem-based learning. Sara additionally focuses on assessment methods related to accreditation. Outside of pedagogical research, Sara is also active in research related to the biomechanics of human movement, serving as the Assistant Director of the Kevin P. Granata Biomechanics Lab at Virginia Tech. Specifically, her recent research interests have focused on postpartum movement mechanics.

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Abstract

This research paper describes a faculty-led collaborative autoethnography exploring insights from the integration of health equity concepts across six core courses in an undergraduate biomedical engineering (BME) curriculum. Mounting health disparities are an urgent concern, with some counties in the United States even facing lower life expectancies in 2014 than in 1980 (Collins, 2017; Dwyer-Lindgren et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2013). The Centers for Disease Control defines health disparities as “preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations” (CDC, 2008). Factors including race, ethnic background, class, gender, and place are well established as contributing to differences in health outcomes in the United States (National Academies of Sciences et al., 2017). Social determinants of health and implicit bias have also been a documented component of the complex drivers of health inequity. However, only more recently, healthcare technologies have come under scrutiny for their role in perpetuating health inequities (Lanier et al., 2022). Amidst this landscape, BME education is amplifying its calls to action, with a clear goal to improve students’ preparedness for addressing health inequities (Lanier et al., 2022; Vazquez et al., 2017). In the compelling words of Lanier et. al (Lanier et al., 2022): “As biomedical engineers developing the next generation of healthcare technologies, we are poised to either improve the health disparity landscape or further widen the gap.”

Despite a shared recognition of the importance of integrating health equity principles into BME curriculum, STEM curriculum has traditionally lacked engagement with health equity concepts (Benabentos et al., 2014; Vazquez, 2018), such as health disparities (Vazquez et al., 2017). Additionally, few best practices are documented in the literature to support engineering faculty in integrating health equity concepts into their courses. We aim to contribute to this gap in literature through a collaborative autoethnography of six biomedical engineering faculty members exploring lessons learned while integrating health equity concepts into core undergraduate courses across the BME curriculum at an R1 institution in the southeastern United States. Combined, faculty participants represent curriculum reform across six core courses, that span the sophomore, junior, and senior years of study at the institution, creating a “spine” of health equity concepts across the BME curriculum. Our guiding research question is: how do BME faculty integrate health equity concepts into core undergraduate BME courses, and what best practices can be illuminated to support further equity-focused curricular reform?

To explore this research question we leverage collaborative autoethnography, a foundational methodology in engineering education research (Case & Light, 2011) and an approach to research inquiry that is growing in use across disciplines (Lapadat, 2017). Our data collection for this autoethnographic study includes collaborative reflective meetings and asynchronous individual written faculty reflections with guided prompts. Data analysis utilized qualitative coding methods, including thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022) and inductive coding (Saldaña, 2012), to synthesize insights across instructors and illuminate best practices to support equity-focused curricular reform. To support our research quality, our process was facilitated by an engineering education researcher, with quality measures underpinned by Le Roux’s (Le Roux, 2017) five evaluation criteria for autoethnographic research: contribution, credibility, resonance, self-reflexivity, and subjectivity. This work does not use data from human subjects and therefore does not meet the definition of human subjects research.

Based on our analysis, we describe themes that emerge across faculty perspectives and course contexts. We offer practical examples of curricular changes that incorporated health equity into core BME curriculum, often facilitated through problem-based learning challenges. We highlight best practices that emerged from the data for reforming BME curriculum to incorporate health equity concepts. Ultimately, this work serves to support BME faculty who seek to integrate health equity concepts into core courses as we collectively seek to strengthen the preparedness of BME graduates to address health disparities through their work.

Citation
Format

Taylor, A. R., & Tate, K., & Muelenaer, A. A., & Roberts, L. M., & Arena, C., & Arena, S. L. (2025, June), Toward a Health Equity Spine Across Biomedical Engineering Curriculum: A Faculty-Led Collaborative Autoethnography Exploring Lessons Learned Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Montreal, Quebec, Canada . https://peer.asee.org/57294

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - This research paper describes a faculty-led collaborative autoethnography exploring insights from the integration of health equity concepts across six core courses in an undergraduate biomedical engineering (BME) curriculum. Mounting health disparities are an urgent concern, with some counties in the United States even facing lower life expectancies in 2014 than in 1980 (Collins, 2017; Dwyer-Lindgren et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2013). The Centers for Disease Control defines health disparities as “preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations” (CDC, 2008). Factors including race, ethnic background, class, gender, and place are well established as contributing to differences in health outcomes in the United States (National Academies of Sciences et al., 2017). Social determinants of health and implicit bias have also been a documented component of the complex drivers of health inequity. However, only more recently, healthcare technologies have come under scrutiny for their role in perpetuating health inequities (Lanier et al., 2022). Amidst this landscape, BME education is amplifying its calls to action, with a clear goal to improve students’ preparedness for addressing health inequities (Lanier et al., 2022; Vazquez et al., 2017). In the compelling words of Lanier et. al (Lanier et al., 2022): “As biomedical engineers developing the next generation of healthcare technologies, we are poised to either improve the health disparity landscape or further widen the gap.”

Despite a shared recognition of the importance of integrating health equity principles into BME curriculum, STEM curriculum has traditionally lacked engagement with health equity concepts (Benabentos et al., 2014; Vazquez, 2018), such as health disparities (Vazquez et al., 2017). Additionally, few best practices are documented in the literature to support engineering faculty in integrating health equity concepts into their courses. We aim to contribute to this gap in literature through a collaborative autoethnography of six biomedical engineering faculty members exploring lessons learned while integrating health equity concepts into core undergraduate courses across the BME curriculum at an R1 institution in the southeastern United States. Combined, faculty participants represent curriculum reform across six core courses, that span the sophomore, junior, and senior years of study at the institution, creating a “spine” of health equity concepts across the BME curriculum. Our guiding research question is: how do BME faculty integrate health equity concepts into core undergraduate BME courses, and what best practices can be illuminated to support further equity-focused curricular reform? 

To explore this research question we leverage collaborative autoethnography, a foundational methodology in engineering education research (Case &amp;amp; Light, 2011) and an approach to research inquiry that is growing in use across disciplines (Lapadat, 2017).  Our data collection for this autoethnographic study includes collaborative reflective meetings and asynchronous individual written faculty reflections with guided prompts. Data analysis utilized qualitative coding methods, including thematic analysis (Braun &amp;amp; Clarke, 2022) and inductive coding (Saldaña, 2012), to synthesize insights across instructors and illuminate best practices to support equity-focused curricular reform. To support our research quality, our process was facilitated by an engineering education researcher, with quality measures underpinned by Le Roux’s (Le Roux, 2017) five evaluation criteria for autoethnographic research: contribution, credibility, resonance, self-reflexivity, and subjectivity. This work does not use data from human subjects and therefore does not meet the definition of human subjects research.

Based on our analysis, we describe themes that emerge across faculty perspectives and course contexts. We offer practical examples of curricular changes that incorporated health equity into core BME curriculum, often facilitated through problem-based learning challenges.  We highlight best practices that emerged from the data for reforming BME curriculum to incorporate health equity concepts. Ultimately, this work serves to support BME faculty who seek to integrate health equity concepts into core courses as we collectively seek to strengthen the preparedness of BME graduates to address health disparities through their work.

AU  - Ashley R Taylor
AU  - Kinsley Tate
AU  - Andre Albert Muelenaer Jr
AU  - LaDeidra Monet Roberts
AU  - Christopher Arena
AU  - Sara L Arena
CY  - Montreal, Quebec, Canada 
DA  - 2025/06/22
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Toward a Health Equity Spine Across Biomedical Engineering Curriculum:  A Faculty-Led Collaborative Autoethnography Exploring Lessons Learned
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/57294
ER  -