Esmailbeigi receives NIH award to promote career development, success for students
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As one of the seven projects funded through the NIH Institutional Excellence in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Biomedical and Behavioral Research Prize, Richard and Loan Hill Department of Biomedical Engineering Clinical Associate Professor Hananeh Esmailbeigi will work to help prepare students to find industry and academic success, build connections with industry professionals, and land internships.
She also recently became the BME director of industry engagement.
Through this project, Esmailbeigi is hosting a career seminar series to facilitate professional development and help students better market themselves to future employers.
The career seminar series, Career Development and Industry Engagement, taps alumni and industry professionals to talk about their career journey, give advice, help students network, and possibly introduce job opportunities.
“One of my missions is for my students to find great industry and academic opportunities upon graduation,” Esmailbeigi said. “I want them to be ready to find a job after graduation. Hence, I’ve developed courses that teach them hands-on skills to make them more marketable. In addition, I have developed a professional development course for biomedical engineers, which allows students the opportunity to plan their future, make connections, and look for opportunities.”
Esmailbeigi added she has also developed a study abroad program this summer, Entrepreneurship in Augmentative, Medical, Smart Sensing, and Wearable Technology in Europe, that will give students skills that make them more desirable to employers.
UIC was awarded the NIH Institutional Excellence in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Biomedical and Behavioral Research Prize in recognition of work addressing disparities in the research workforce. The award strives to recognize the transformative cultures, systems, projects, and processes developed by academic institutions to promote inclusive excellence and create environments that foster and value a culture of DEIA and identify practices that enhance DEIA within faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and student bodies and can be adopted by other institutions.
The funding was given to UIC, which was one of 10 academic institutions to receive the award, which includes $100,000 and an invitation to a virtual symposium this summer to present interventions that produced measurable impact in the STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Medicine) fields.
The next seminar will be held on April 25 and feature Courtney Mohs and Sam Parmentier, a mechanical engineer and engineering manager, respectively, at Sunset Healthcare Solutions. For more information about the seminar, visit https://bme.uic.edu/events/cs-6-2-2/.