HST and Undergraduate Students
BioMatrix is a mentoring program that brings like-minded people, those interested in the life sciences and engineering, together through a variety of professional, academic, research, and personal-life activities.
HST offers the Medical Engineering track of the Master of Engineering in Biomedical Engineering (MEBE) degree. The Medical Engineering track provides engineering students with an introduction to human pathophysiology and the application of engineering to medicine. Its curriculum incorporates some educational resources of Harvard Medical School.
Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)
HST provides research opportunities to undergraduates through its participation in UROP. Students may choose UROP as a way to get to know faculty, learn about a potential major, investigate an area of interest, gain practical skills, or find out what research is like. Working as junior colleagues of faculty, UROP students' activities may include developing research plans, writing proposals, conducting research, analyzing data, and presenting results.
UROPs may be undertaken during the academic year and/or the summer months, and can be done for academic credit, pay, or on a volunteer basis. Students may not, however, receive pay and credit for the same project during any given term. Projects can last for a semester or continue for a year or more. To apply, a student interested in creating a UROP project writes a proposal describing the planned research, and is required to obtain the approval of the faculty sponsor and the UROP office. Wellesley College undergraduates may participate in UROP through the MIT-Wellesley Exchange Program.
For more information about UROP opportunities through HST, consult the UROP website or contact HST's UROP Coordinator, Senior Academic Administrator Dr. Frederick Bowman, at (617) 253-7426 or hfbowman@mit.edu.
VaNTH ERC Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Summer Program
A consortium of Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University, University of Texas at Austin, and HST, VaNTH was founded in 1999 as Engineering Research Centers (ERC) funded by the National Science Foundation. It is the only ERC devoted to biomedical engineering education. The 9-week REU program is designed to expose students to the latest developments in the theory and practice of bioengineering education. Projects in the past have included: Assisting faculty with authoring pedagogically informed curricula, programming of bioengineering educational technologies (simulations and animations), bioengineering taxonomy authoring and editing, and educational research (data collection, processing, and analysis).
For more information or to obtain an application for admission consult the VaNTH ERC website or contact Andrea Santo at (617) 258-7084 or asanto@mit.edu.
Courses offered by HST specifically for undergraduates include:
HST S11 The Art and Science of Medicine
HST 410J Projects in Microscale Engineering for the Life Sciences
HST 422J A Clinical Approach to the Human Brain
HST 424J Diseases of the Nervous System
HST 491 Reviewing Biomedical Literature
HST 540J Human Physiology
HST 542J Quantitative Physiology: Organ Transport Systems
HST 575J Bioelectronics Project Laboratory
HST 598 Special Topics in Health Sciences and Technology
HST 901J Health Economics
HST UR Undergraduate Research in Health Sciences and Technology
In addition, qualified undergraduates may take other HST courses with permission of the course director.
