NRT-FW-HTF: NSF Traineeship in the Advancement of Surgical Technologies

Rapid changes in surgical technologies have created new demands on the future engineering workforce. For example, future engineers will create intelligent surgical instruments, autonomous robots that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to make clinical decisions, and tools that augment the performance and capabilities of surgeons. This will require a convergence of skillsets and knowledge to traverse technological, regulatory, ethical, and societal hurdles to create technologies that safely and successfully meet modern challenges.

Most graduate engineering programs excel at teaching the fundamental tenets of their respective disciplines. However, graduate engineering curricula often lack the training that enables students to transcend their disciplines and engage in convergent research that involves not just other engineers, but also professionals from other STEM fields, medicine, business, and law.

By engaging with these other disciplines, this traineeship will provide a more holistic and innovative approach for the professional formation of engineers to impact the future of advanced surgical technologies. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to Duke University will train Master’s and Ph.D. students in the interdisciplinary fields of engineering, computer science, data science, and surgical technologies.

This project anticipates training a total of 230 students, including 30 NRT-funded trainees from Engineering, Computer Science, Math, Science and Society, and Statistics. The vision for this traineeship is to provide a new research and training framework for engineering and computer science graduate students to access other disciplines and thereby design advanced surgical technologies that integrate medical provider, societal, end-user, and patient needs throughout development and testing.

The proposed traineeship model combines classroom-based, research-based, and professional development activities completed concurrently over two years, leading to four core learning outcomes: (1) a common knowledge base; (2) subject expertise across multiple, convergent disciplines; (3) a translational experience at the forefront of surgical technology research and development; and (4) professional development opportunities that prepare students for both academic and industry-based careers in surgical technology. A specific novelty of the proposed program is the use of topical primers interconnected with mini design challenges in which trainees will shadow a surgeon, use current surgical tools and robots, and take knowledge primers in robotics, surgery, machine learning, rapid prototyping, ethics, intellectual property, and medical law; these activities are designed to enable students to acquire a diverse knowledge base and necessary professional development quickly.

Trainees will also receive feedback from stakeholders such as surgeons and external board members from industry to provide further professional development.

The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.