007 - "Beyond The Obvious" with Miiri Kotche
Dr. Miiri Kotche, Associate Dean at UIC College of Engineering and former Validation Engineer, discusses her transition from industry to academia, emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and clinical immersion for biomedical engineering students. She details her Fulbright Scholar experience at VTT in Finland, focusing on translating user needs into engineering design requirements, and describes her current leadership of the MAD Lab and STEM outreach programs like BEST. Kotche highlights the challenges of teaching during the pandemic and the value of exposing students to real-world clinical workflows to identify unmet needs.