High School Students
Engaged in Applied Sciences, Research, and Technology
Empowering high school students to learn engineering methods for studying heart development.
Who We Are
This outreach program is designed through a collaboration between Dr. Kheradvar’s lab at UCI and Dr. Rugonyi’s lab at OHSU funded by two grants from National Science Foundation (NSF). This interdisciplinary program will allow students to study the impact of hemodynamics on heart development.
Through this unique experience, we aim to empower high school students to lead research talks, inspire them to pursue STEM majors in college, and ultimately cultivate their desire to participate in research programs throughout their collegiate career. Our goal is to enable better understanding of embryonic and fetal heart development, which could lead to improved fetal diagnosis of heart defects, improved strategies to prevent heart malformations, and therapies to ameliorate the effects of cardiac malformations in babies and children with heart defects.
Benefits of Program
Students participating from the State of California will join Kheradvar lab and will have the opportunity to collaborate with the students participating from the State of Oregon in Rugonyi lab. All students will gain hands-on experience working in labs, and attend workshops. This program will cover topics such as the congenital heart disease, how the heart develops, how blood flows, how genes influence heart development, and engineering methods to study heart development.
This program will provide students a deeper look into the interdisciplinary fields of biology and engineering.
Program Description
This is a 3-week summer program where students in collaboration with each other will learn about heart development, how STEM disciplines can be used to investigate how the heart forms normally or develops malformations, and will cultivate team science skills. Participants will gain hands-on experience through class projects, and will present their findings on heart formation and developmental defects to both the OHSU and UCI communities in a safe learning environment- all from the vibrant UC Irvine and OHSU campuses.
Timeline of Program
Start Date: June 24, 2024 End Date: July 12, 2024
Week 1
Students will learn about basic aspects of heart development and heart function while engaging in hands-on experimental and computational activities. Teams of students at UCI and OHSU will collaborate in the analysis and interpretation of data.
Week 2
Students at UCI and OHSU will continue to collaborate, exchange data and ideas. They will develop projects in groups, while learning and applying different techniques that are employed in the study of heart development.
Week 3
Students will finalize their projects, write a paper, and then prepare and present their projects to OHSU and UCI audiences.
Meet The Team
Project Coordinator at UCI
Arash Kheradvar
Kheradvar is a cardiovascular scientist and engineer with established track record in cardiovascular engineering, heart valves, cardiac imaging and biomechanics. Dr. Kheradvar received his M.D. from Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2000 and his Ph. D. in Bioengineering from Caltech in 2006.
Project Coordinator at OHSU
Sandra Rugonyi
Rugonyi is a tenured professor of biomedical engineering at the OHSU School of Medicine. She received her M.S and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Rugonyi's main research interests are on cardiovascular mechanics, in particular how blood flow influences the heart and vessel tissues leading to a healthy balance or disease progression.
Location
University of California, Irvine Oregon Health and Science University, Portland
