"The Salisbury Prizes are awarded to highly meritorious members of the WPI graduating class who have faithfully, industriously, and with distinguished attainment completed all requirements for the Bachelor degree." Furthermore, these students must earn and A on their IQP, MQP and HUA project. This year, there were 22 winners from the class of 2019. The BME department congratulates their three talented and accomplished winners, Shion Matsumoto, Olivia Leavitt and Rosanna Heidt (from left to right). Learn more about the recipients, who are coincidentally MQP teammates:
Rosanna Heidt, from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, is a double major in BME and ME and a minor in Chinese Cultural Studies. She worked as a tutor for the Academic Resource Center for 2 years tutoring Calculus 3 & 4, Material Science and Intro to MATLAB. She is the treasurer for Alpha Eta Mu Beta (BME Honors Society) and a member of Pi Tau Sigma (ME Honors Society) and has been involved in martial arts (karate & Society of Martial Arts) and held officer positions for both. Rosanna has had the pleasure of working with academic advisor Professor Tiffiny Butler and minor advisor Professor Rudolph. Her plans for post-graduation include a Mechanical Design Engineer position with Sensata Technologies. She has learned that there's just so much left to learn, and is excited to see what the future holds.
Olivia Leavitt is originally from Woolwich, Maine, but grew up in Okinawa, Japan, and attended elementary through high school on Kadena Air Force Base. She is a Foisie Scholar and a recipient of an Honorable Mention for the Class of 1879 Award. Olivia has completed minors in Biology and Music, and her IQP involved assessing the remaining radiation in personal protective equipment from nuclear remediation workers in the exclusion zone of Fukushima, Japan. She is especially excited that her entire MQP team has won Salisbury Prizes. Olivia will be entering the PhD program in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University this summer.
Shion Matsumoto, from Otsu, Shiga, Japan, is a double major in BME and ME. Coming into college, he was not sure what he wanted to do, but through experiences at WPI, he found his interest in the intersection between mathematics, computer science, and fluid mechanics, especially as it pertains to biomedical applications. He had the opportunity to take additional courses and conduct research in these domains, and it allowed him to better envision how they fit in within the greater goal of advancing medicine. With this, he will be going to the University of Minnesota to pursue an MS in Mechanical Engineering.