New BME faculty member named Engineering Unleashed Fellow
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After nine years in the Biology and Biomedical Engineering Department at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Emily Dosmar has moved back to the city she loves and joined the UIC Richard and Loan Hill Department of Biomedical Engineering this semester as a clinical associate professor.
Dosmar completed her bachelor’s in biomedical engineering at Rose-Hulman and her PhD at the Illinois Institute of Technology, focusing on biomaterials and drug delivery.
As Dosmar was finishing her PhD, a former professor from Rose-Hulman reached out and explained they had a vacancy for a visiting professor. Unsure of whether she wanted to pursue academia or not, Dosmar took the offer and fell in love with teaching, eventually earning tenure in the department.
Dosmar explained that teaching at UIC is a dream position that provides lots of face time with students, research opportunities, the ability to focus on her classes, and professional engagement; all against the backdrop of beautiful Chicago.
At UIC, Dosmar plans to pursue ocular drug delivery and educational research.
Dosmar was also recently named an Engineering Unleashed Fellow. This honor highlights entrepreneurially minded learning as central to the development of engineering graduates prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing world.
After attending a workshop from the Kern Family Foundation to learn how to integrate learning from failure into the classroom, she developed a project-based course related to medical devices.
“Over the course of the semester, students learn about topics related to biomaterials, regulatory affairs, and device development through the lens of how they’ve failed,” Dosmar said.
For example, she added that there are various types of total joint replacements with many different material combinations that can be used to design them. Looking at how they’ve been designed and the long-term effects, it turns out if two pieces of metal articulate, it can produce wear particles that migrate into the bloodstream and eventually cause neurological issues.
“With every design choice that you make, there’s something to be learned about the long-term performance of that choice,” she said. “From there, students can ask questions, including ‘why is that choice good or bad?’ and explore what mistakes were made while they learn from failure.
Dosmar believes that the reality of being an engineer is working in a collaborative environment. Engineers work on large-scale projects, and students need to be capable of asking questions that get interesting answers and know how to research on their own.
“I’m bringing this idea that undergrads can do amazing things,” Dosmar said. “I have really high expectations for undergrads. I don’t think that they need to have their hands held for very long.”
She hopes to eventually teach biomaterials and is currently teaching BME 410—FDA and ISO Requirements for the Development and Manufacturing of Medical Devices and co-teaching senior design with Clinical Associate Professor Anthony Felder.
Dosmar is also looking forward to collaborating with students, helping to facilitate them as they become real engineers, through experiences such as senior design, where they’re developing a product that will be used by a client.
“Being a steward of that process is exciting to me,” she said. “Watching students find the things that excite them and supporting them as they pursue their interests without inhibition. To students, regulatory affairs are perceived as a dry topic, but it’s pretty interesting when viewed through the lens of case studies and can be very exciting. I’m hoping to get students excited about that topic because a lot of them will be working in similar fields.”
“I’m very open to supporting students’ needs and seeing what I can do for them,” Dosmar said.
She hopes to continue the strong emphasis on education and making things as accessible to undergraduate students as they were at Rose-Hulman.