Message from EIH Director Jonathan Posner

2020-2021 was a successful and exciting year for EIH with many firsts. We are thankful for our new partnership with Tegria and are pleased to share the inauguration of the Leaders of Health Innovation Seminar series, the creation of the EIH Graduate Fellows, and the move of the EIH program to Fluke Hall, the home of CoMotion Labs. Although EIH was primary delivered virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, seven EIH teams were able to work in the EIH lab under appropriate safety precautions. We had a record number of EIH teams participating in the EIH Summer Incubator. Please read the newsletter to learn more about EIH activities and accomplishments. We look forward to seeing you at our in-person events this year!

Meet the 2021 teams

News & updates

Partnership with Novo Nordisk grows

The initial partnership with Novo Nordisk, which began in 2019 as the sponsorship of a single EIH project, grew this year as the company-sponsored two projects and hired three EIH students as interns.

Novo Nordisk's two EIH projects, Under Pressure and Beta Watch, both focused on helping patients living with chronic diseases. These student teams gained invaluable insight from mentorship by leading industry scientists, engineers, and project managers. As evidence of the value of the partnership, the Under Pressure team won third place in the UW Hollomon Health Competition.

This February Novo Nordisk hired three students from the EIH program as strategy interns. The interns learned about many facets of the company, including drug discovery, device research, project management, human resources, commercialization and regulatory procedure, and used their training from EIH to identify project needs, stakeholders and solutions. Two of the interns' projects continue to strengthen the relationship between Novo Nordisk and UW: one project is developing a new consortium and another is a speaker series focused on preventive health titled, “Intent to Prevent: The Future of Innovative Healthcare,” that will feature UW Professor Julie Kientz (register to learn more about the speaker series). The interns have been inspired by the passion of everyone at Novo Nordisk and didn't hesitate to accept when they were offered a chance to continue their work through the calendar year. 

EIH and Team Science publish manuscript

The EIH program fosters diverse teams across engineering disciplines and academic levels with healthcare professionals to collaboratively address complex health challenges. With the emerging focus on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams, there is a growing emphasis on strategically examining and enhancing team dynamics, known as Team Science.

In 2017, the EIH program partnered with the Institute for Translational Health Sciences (ITHS) and the UW Center for Health Sciences Interprofessional Education, Research & Practice (CHSIE) to bring tailored Team Science training to EIH student-clinician teams. The implementation of Team Science training into the EIH program has resulted in measurable improvements in team dynamics, communication and program participant satisfaction. The program has also seen an increase in provisional patent applications, prototyping funds raised, startups formed and projects continuing beyond the EIH program. You can read more about our implementation process and outcomes in Blakeney & Kang, et al., 2021.

EIH team welcomes fellows

EIH welcomed two program alumni, Shawn Swanson and Jenny Cho, as EIH fellows this year. Jenny, a graduate student in electrical & computer engineering, has provided teams with hardware and electrical mentoring. Shawn, a Ph.D. candidate, provided students with knowledge in grant writing and startup development. The EIH Fellow program is an exciting way to bring specific expertise and recent experiences as EIH students into the classroom.

EIH moves to Fluke Hall

This year the EIH program moved from the Mechanical Engineering Annex to Fluke Hall, a few minutes walk from the engineering complex. The new location will provide wet bench space, chemical hoods and capacity to serve the growing number of EIH teams and projects. Fluke Hall also houses CoMotion Labs, a group that provides a multi-industry incubation environment for early-stage UW startup companies. EIH’s move allows access to CoMotion Lab’s infrastructure, workshops and mentoring for startups. Perhaps most important for EIH is the opportunity to network with entrepreneurs that are translating their discoveries into businesses in the supportive UW environment. We are excited for the move to Fluke Hall and look forward to EIH project teams joining CoMotion Labs in the near future.

Student spotlights: Multi-disciplinary majors

Multi-disciplinary teams are not new to EIH. Students come from a mix of engineering departments such as mechanical, electrical and chemical. But this year the reach expanded outside of engineering for the first time with two students from the Foster School of Business. EIH was fortunate to have Victoria Eng and Robert White to share their expertise in the business side of medical product development.

Robert White, a veteran, entrepreneur, philanthropist, advocate for hearing disabilities and a father, brought an abundance of knowledge into EIH including building a business model, developing a value proposition and competing in external competitions. Currently he continues to gain recognition and funding for his start-up, Sound Sustainability, and will continue to work with his EIH team, Safe&Sound.

Acknowledgements

EIH would like to extend our warmest gratitude to the individuals who volunteered their time and effort to the program this year. Thank you to all our clinical partners; industry sponsor, Novo Nordisk; program sponsor, Tegria; the entire EIH Advisory Board; and Suzy Dintzis, Randy Bly, LightSpeed Microscopy (Adam Glaser and Nick Reder),  David Tan, Andrew Laughlin, Tom Clary, Keith Chan, David Hammond, Anthony Crawford, Ryan Buckmaster, Martin Poenot, Patrick Chinkiwsky, Teddy Johnson, Marco Micheletti, Laura Smith, Sara Gordon, Julie Kientz, Ron Haas, Eric Hagstrom, Minas Tanielian, Colleen Carroll, and Ethan Boehm.

Program highlights

EIH Summer Incubator teams

We are pleased to announce that we have accepted a record number of seven health innovation projects to continue development in the EIH Summer Incubator. pHastCam, Safe&Sound, Mask Fit Testing, ProtectIV, Biloccult, Aeroception, and Under Pressure have continued to advance their projects towards clinical evaluation and commercialization. The EIH Summer Incubator is supported by a grant from the Herbert B. Jones Foundation and a generous gift by Tom and Sue Clary. 

EIH teams gain traction

This year, four past and current EIH teams were selected as finalists in the UW Holloman Health Innovation Challenge, including Under Pressure, who won 3rd place prize for $5000, and Mask Fit Testing, who won the $2500 Best Idea for Pandemic Preparedness award. Two EIH teams were recently awarded the $50,000 CoMotion Innovation Gap Fund award. Sensit-IV is a bedside diagnostic tool for targeted assessment of shock before, during, and after treatment to aid clinicians managing fluid therapy. H2neo is an innovative, life-saving technology that provides affordable and accessible means of delivering IV fluids to vulnerable newborns in low-resourced settings globally to prevent neonatal dehydration. Sensit-IV has also gone on to win both Phase I and Phase II of the national VentureWell E-Team award for bringing high-impact innovation out of the lab and into the market. H2neo has also gone on to negotiate a licensing agreement for their innovative technology. The ProtectIV, Sensit-IV, pHastcam, and h2neo EIH teams were awarded $10,000 Murdock Foundry for Biochemical Diagnostic Pilot Awards. Congratulations to all the EIH teams and the tremendous success you have achieved this year!

Clary Family Professorship

Congratulations to Soyoung Kang for being named the Clary Family Early Career Development Professor for Engineering Innovation in Health. Tom & Sue Clary provided a generous gift that will support the EIH program and students for many years. Tom is an engineer and entrepreneur with over 40 years of experience developing new technologies. He has launched five companies with innovations ranging from improved cochlear implants to a laser-based dimensional-measurement system for aerospace manufacturing. Tom received the bachelor's degree from the University of California, San Diego, and pursued graduate work in bioengineering at the University of Washington. In his free time, Tom is a pilot and enjoys kayaking with Sue. They look forward to continuing road trips with their Bernese Mountain Dog, Hope. 

Leaders in Health Innovation (LHI)

EIH launches a speaker series

The new Leaders in Health Innovation speaker series invites those at the forefront of this space to share and discuss insights with students, faculty, and EIH community. Each talk focuses on the exciting topics in health innovation and how UW Engineering can remain at the leading edge of this important work. We are grateful for the three speakers who kicked off our first year of this exciting series. 

UW Home

EIH Home

About EIH