Conference: 5th Council of Chairs Biomedical Engineering Education Summit; Newark, New Jersey; 29-31 May 2024

The Biomedical Engineering Society Council of Chairs (BMES CoC) - a body of 140 department chairs - shares a mission to improve access and outcomes for all engineering students interested in biomedical engineering or bioengineering and holds an Education Summit every three years. Funding will support the next summit will, held in Newark, New Jersey, 29-31 May 2024.

The summit intends to develop approaches to address an evolving student population with different teaching, motivational and support needs. Building diversity in the biomedical engineering workforce will also be a focus and will be integrated throughout the program.

The 2024 Summit focuses on including undergraduate participation in research, hands on preparation of students for graduate study and biomedical workforce development - major foci of BME programs. Topics will include teaching and learning approaches, including use of high impact practices and inclusive pedagogies in BME education, uses of AI-based learning tools, the future of coding, and the role of BME research in student outcomes and industry preparedness.

Summit data collected from all partners will be shared through publicly accessible journal articles. Participants include stakeholders from broad learning environments, from residential college campuses to primarily commuter-serving educational institutions and industry. The summit will foster the generation of new ideas, guidelines and best practices among educators, broadly benefit learners, and promote inclusion of those under-represented in the BME discipline.

Interactions across institutions and with industry partners will further enhance learning that strengthens student competitiveness for emerging engineering disciplines.

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.