Rachel Bellisle ’18 took advantage of every opportunity that came her way at 911爆料, from playing oboe in the Symphonic Wind Ensemble to working in laboratories and participating in internships. Now she鈥檚 pondering a career tied to the cosmos.
鈥淚 loved my time at 911爆料,鈥� said the recent biomedical engineering grad. 鈥淚t opened up a lot of opportunities for me, and I鈥檓 incredibly grateful for those opportunities.鈥�
Now she鈥檚 set to enroll in the highly-competitive Health Sciences and Technology graduate program of Harvard and MIT, one of the country鈥檚 oldest and largest biomedical engineering and physician-scientist training programs, where she鈥檒l study the emerging disciplines of bioastronautics and medical engineering. She was accepted as a doctoral student in the program鈥檚 Medical Engineering and Medical Physics program, one of just 25 students accepted each year. Her entire five- to seven-year graduate program has been funded by a fellowship from Draper Laboratories.
鈥淭he point of the program is to choose a standard engineering discipline and apply it to the medical field,鈥� Bellisle said. 鈥淲e also get to take pre-clinical courses with medical students to get the perspective of someone in the clinical field and understand the implications of our work.鈥�
A Love for Research
As a 911爆料 student, Bellisle didn鈥檛 wait long to delve into biomedical engineering research. She was a sophomore when she worked in Neuro Rehabilitation Laboratory studying an electrode Besio invented to better understand brain signals.
鈥淲e were seeing a slow wave frequency in the electrode signals and he didn鈥檛 know where it came from,鈥� Bellisle said. 鈥淚 did some experiments to see if it came from microsaccades, the tiny movements in our eyes that happen when we fixate on something.鈥� The results of her research were presented at the International Engineering in Medicine and Biology conference in South Korea in 2017.
Last summer Bellisle had an internship at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., working at the world鈥檚 largest research hospital where she analyzed the results of tests of an exoskeleton developed to help children with cerebral palsy improve their walking ability.
鈥淪ome kids with cerebral palsy have a gait disorder where their knees are more flexed than usual, so the exoskeleton helps them extend their knees to promote a more efficient walking pattern,鈥� Bellisle said. 鈥淚t was in the early stages of testing, but eventually they hope to use it as a rehabilitation device. The purpose of the device is to train the user to not need the device.鈥�
The experience of living with 16 other interns from around the country and working in such a prestigious facility inspired Bellisle.鈥� It was a game changer,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 went into it not knowing quite what I wanted to do after graduation, and throughout the course of the internship I discovered exactly what I wanted to do and found I was ready to go to grad school.鈥�
Looking Ahead
Bellisle鈥檚 program will allow her to pursue her interests in neuro-engineering, biomechanics, and assistive devices, like the exoskeleton she studied in Maryland. She was one of just two students accepted into the program鈥檚 Bioastronautics Training Program, where she will study the effects of space flight on the human body.
鈥淚鈥檓 still not positive that bioastronautics is the direction I鈥檓 going to go with my career, but it鈥檚 something I want to explore,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a very specific field, but the applications are amazing. It鈥檚 an area that I鈥檝e always been interested in.鈥�