Hui Shi is a young person with her eyes on the big picture. She came to the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) to help put it into focus.

She already had a solid grasp of engineering concepts when she arrived at the Georgia Institute of Technology – her father is a lecturer in electrical engineering back in her hometown, Shenzhen, China (where Georgia Tech recently opened a campus). But she was convinced that she could become a game changer by expanding her horizon a good bit.

“My goal is to become a scientist with a background in biomedical engineering,” says Hui, a junior who considers biomedical engineering to be “like the liberal arts of engineering. You have a chance to explore many different areas, which I think is a good experience for an undergraduate.”

She wanted to come to one of the elite BME programs in the world because it could satisfy her wide-ranging interests and curiosity. She says a deeper exploration into, say, one or two special areas of interest can wait until grad school. “After that,” she adds, “I want to develop my own research techniques and have a great impact.”

Hui is off to a good start. She’s already worked in the labs of two leading researchers at the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.

She has worked in the Neurophysiology Lab of T. Richard Nichols (professor and chair of the School of Applied Physiology), because she considered getting into the neurosciences. And her work last semester in Maysam Ghovanloo’s GT-Bionics Lab earned a scholarship from the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. Hui was part of the team working on the Wireless Emergency and Adherence Monitoring System, or WEAMS, a neckwear technology designed to assist with managing medication, tracking daily activities, detecting falls, automatically notifying caregivers, clinicians, and emergency management teams if needed. It can also be equipped with additional modules for monitoring vital signs, depending on the needs of the user.

“I thought it was cool and was very interested in this wearable device, in the technology, so I applied and was able to join the group,” says Hui, who was part of Ghovanloo’s WEAMS team for a relatively short time, but managed to make a valuable impression on a couple of fronts.
For example, Ghovanloo describes her as a quick study on a range of topics. “I found her to be smart, attentive, and eager to learn,” he says.

The Metro Atlanta Chamber noticed also. The chamber awarded Hui with one of its Mobile Atlanta Scholarships. Four juniors with a demonstrated interest and/or expertise in advancing wireless mobility – such as a wireless, wearable medical device, think WEAMS – from regional universities were awarded $2,500 scholarships.

The winning students, all women, were selected based on criteria that included an educational or workplace pursuit in the mobility space, and creative insights and perspectives on the future of mobility. Shi is interested in the connections between mobility and the future of medicine, and plans to pursue a graduate degree in computational biology after she graduates (though she's taking this semester off, she says she's on pace to graduate in spring 2016).

Whichever path or paths Hui's scientific pursuits lead her down, she is convinced that a foundation in biomedical engineering is going to help her meet the healthcare challenges that exist and are coming. She also believes it’s just a smart career choice, with plenty of job security.

“Healthcare technology is a hot area to get into,” says Hui. “The population is getting older, in larger numbers. Also, people are more concerned with taking care of their health these days. I believe that what we learn in biomedical engineering will change the way people live, improve their quality of life. I want to be part of that."