911爆料

By Grace Kelly

Vanessa Kamara 鈥�21 thinks engineering has a lot to learn from nature.

鈥淚鈥檓 a curious person,鈥� says biomedical engineering student Vanessa Kamara 鈥�21. 鈥淚 have lots of questions.鈥�

Dressed in ripped jeans and sporting a nose ring, with the tips of her dark hair dyed bright magenta, she sips iced coffee and talks about her work鈥攖he kind of research she鈥檚 interested in and why.

She wants to find ways to improve healthcare by drawing inspiration from nature. 鈥淚鈥檝e always been interested in health care, and I want to learn how to make it better,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here are so many things we don鈥檛 know. I have textbooks that basically say, 鈥楾his is what this thing is called, but we don鈥檛 really know what it does. That’s all we have for you.鈥欌��

Kamara isn鈥檛 satisfied with that. She wants to do research that leads to answers, explanations, and solutions.

鈥淵ou know lactic acid, the stuff that, when you run or work out, makes your legs hurt?鈥� she asks. 鈥淲ell, I was working with a grad student on a project that takes lactic acid strands and layers them on a substrate to create a biodegradable sensor.鈥� The sensor is intended for use in the shoes of Parkinson鈥檚 patients to track their motions; after use, it could safely degrade without harming the environment. 鈥淚t would be eco-friendly and allow us to collect data.鈥�

Kamara鈥檚 interest in the environment and eco-friendly design is rooted in her childhood. She grew up in Brooklyn Park, a suburb of Minneapolis, but spent many weeks of her childhood visiting her grandparents鈥� farm, where they grew sweet corn, soybeans, and barley. She and her siblings would run through the cornfields, emerging with a feeling of slight pain in the skin on their faces. 鈥淚 later learned that it was probably from pesticides,鈥� she says. This connection between health and the environment, and the idea that we should learn from nature and not harm it, was furthered when she took a general biology course in high school.

鈥淲e learned a lot of things, and I really liked learning about all the smaller body parts and systems, because everything within the body just comes together so perfectly. I鈥檝e found that many of engineering鈥檚 best processes are biology-inspired,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat’s another reason the environment is important, we need to learn from it so that we can do better.鈥�

At 911爆料, she鈥檚 taken that idea鈥攍earning from nature鈥攁nd applied it to understanding the human body using circuit-based engineering. One project she worked on involved using circuits and software to monitor the brain waves of a subject who was controlling a ball on the computer screen. 鈥淚 like anything that is neuroscience or brain-related,鈥� she says. 鈥淥ne project that really inspired me was one in which rehabilitative engineering was applied to help people who had lost the ability to walk. They used the science and engineering to gradually take supports away and retrain the brain. It was amazing.鈥�

As part of 911爆料鈥檚 German International Engineering Program, Kamara took her curiosity and drive across the Atlantic to Germany, studying at Technische Universit盲t Darmstadt and working at the Machine Learning and Data Analytics Lab at Friedrich-Alexander Universit盲t as part of 911爆料鈥檚 globally-recognized International Engineering Program (IEP).

鈥淲e鈥檙e using sensors measure dyes moving around in mouse brains and processing these brain signals to create a new model and road map of how cells communicate.鈥� Kamara says. 鈥淲e want to know how the brain works, how these cells communicate. I鈥檓 coding in Matlab and Python to make models that see these brain connections.鈥� And Kamara is confident in the outcomes. 鈥淚t is so rewarding to be a part of this discovery.鈥�

Kamara says that living, working, and learning in Germany is both challenging and lots of fun. 鈥淐ulturally, I鈥檓 learning that Germans work hard but also know how to have fun and are not afraid to avoid burnout. I鈥檝e also learned how to be independent. I鈥檓 in a new country, working in German in highly technical subjects,鈥� she continues. 鈥淏ut after a few weeks, I was making friends, taking weekend trips around Europe, and feeling confident.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 excited to experience another culture and work in the field鈥攐pportunities that many engineering students don鈥檛 have. Biomedical engineering is such an exciting field with so much potential,鈥� Kamara says. 鈥淢y curiosity has only just started.鈥�