Two BME undergraduate students were recognized with the 2009 Michael Birnbaum Scholars award:

Natalie Joe - advisor: Todd McDevitt, PhD

Venkata Damaraju - advisors: Suzie Eskin, PhD and Larry McIntire, PhD

These $1000 awards are given to BME undergraduate students to help support continuation of their post-PURA undergraduate research experience. This is the third undergraduate awarded from the McDevitt laboratory.

Michael Birnbaum is presently a Consultant to Medtronic and teaches the Pacing Systems Training and Fellows Program. Throughout his career, he has had a passion for teaching and education, devoting much of his time to community activites to share the world of biotechnology with high school students. Mr. Birnbaum also spent time conducting training sessions for the Georgia Tech Tissue and Engineering Center's REU and URS students.

Upon Mr. Birnbaum's retirement from Medtronic, John Davis, then the VP for Operations in the Southeast for Medtronic, wanted to do something more than a "gold watch." He felt the thing dearest to Mr. Birnbaum's heart was training and educating young people and, as a result, Medtronic established a fund to support Georgia Tech undergraduate BME students in their research. The award is given each year to post-PURA awardees to extend their research experiences in the laboratory.