A project aimed at putting a face to biomedical engineering.
Founded in 1975 and regarded as one of the most prestigious grant programs in biomedical engineering, the Whitaker International Program awards money each year to students in BME to send them abroad for a full calendar year to work with foreign research teams. Their aim is to foster international collaboration amongst biomedical engineers to solve the world’s most pressing issues in medicine.
In 2018 the program’s original endowment, which has contributed more than $700 million to academic institutions and medical schools to support research, had begun to dry up. In 2019 the Whitaker International Program decided to award a final ‘Concluding Grant Initiative’ – their only stipulation to apply was that 50% or more of the applying team were past Whitaker grant recipients and that the proposed project must continue the legacy of the program.
As it turns out, three friends of mine, and three of the most intelligent people that I know, are former Whitaker International Program grant recipients. Two are finishing their PhD’s in Biomedical Engineering at John’s Hopkins and the other at the University of Maryland Baltimore School of Medicine.
Together they asked if I would be interested in applying with them to win the $100,000 concluding grant initiative.
Our project proposal was to create a digital storybook of past Whitaker recipients as well as doctors from their former host institutions abroad. The content would live on a website and be distributed across social media. My role on the project would be that of digital producer and social media consultant. I would travel abroad once a year for 30 days and visit as many host institutions across as many countries as possible to conduct lab visits and interviews, build our website and grow our social media channels.
We won.
The project is still ongoing, but since being awarded the funds I have designed and built our website and planned and executed on a 30-day production trip across 8 countries in Europe visiting over 20 labs and interviewing over 50 doctors. I’ve also created our brand’s visual identity, maintain our social media and manage our team’s budget.
