Photo by Chris Lam
Published March 25, 2014, last updated on April 9, 2018
Nimmi Ramanujam, professor of biomedical engineering and global health, compared the field of engineering with music at her talk at TEDxDuke on Saturday. She challenged the audience to make engineering as pervasive and intrinsic as music in our culture, in an effort to connect engineering with communities and build a more sustainable world.
In her talk “Transcending boundaries to achieve sustainable solutions to women’s health,” Ramanujam said it’s important to empower students to share their passion for engineering. She highlighted work with MSc-GH graduate and current biomedical engineering PhD student Chris Lam on developing a cost-effective device for cervical screening in low-resource settings like Haiti. Ramanujam also mentioned work with DGHI partners, the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Tanzania and WISER in Kenya, on several projects to advance cervical cancer research and empower young girls to consider engineering careers.
Ramanujam is leading a multi-disciplinary effort at Duke to develop point-of-care technologies for women’s health and in particular, breast and cervical cancers. In October, she launched the Global Women’s Health Technologies Center, a partnership between DGHI and Pratt School of Engineering to increase research, training and education in women’s diseases, and to increase retention of women and under-represented minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) educational disciplines locally and globally. She has also launched a company, Zenalux, to commercialize several of the technologies developed in her lab.
Watch Ramanujam’s TED talk, which begins at 40 minutes and 50 seconds.
Junior Christine Schindler, who works with Ramanujam in the Global Women’s Health Technologies Lab, was also a speaker at the event. She is pursuing co-majors in biomedical engineering and global health. Last summer, she completed an internship in Tanzania that combined both disciplines.
