Team Members:

Kimber Ashman: Hi! My name is Kimber and I studied Mechanical Engineering at Hopkins. After graduation, I moved back home to New Orleans and worked as an operations engineer at Blade Dynamics, a company that designs and manufactures modular wind turbine blades. My time in Sevagram will be spent investigating global surgery and trying to understand the largest challenges that those performing (and receiving) minimally invasive surgery have.

David Blumenstyk: Hi, my name is David and I'm a New Jersey native who attended the University of Maryland and graduated in 2012 with a bachelor's degree in Bioengineering. In college, my research interests focused on musculoskeletal diseases and biomechanics. My previous medical device experience includes a pressure sensing device to help patients recover from orthopedic injuries. My passion for entrepreneurship grew after college while working on a novel technique to bridge communication between emergency departments and ambulances, drawing on my 8 years of experience as a volunteer EMT. When not focusing on healthcare and medical devices, I can be found at the soccer fields on campus or talking obsessively about my favorite European "football" teams.

Nikki Leartprapun: Hi I'm Nichaluk (Nikki) Leartprapun from Thailand. I did my undergraduate study in biomedical engineering at Brown University where I was involved a research project on a new optical biosensing platform. I have interests in biophotonics, medical diagnostics, and medical technology development for resource-limited settings. I plan to pursue further research in the biomedical field after gaining experience in medical device design and innovation as part of the CBID graduate program.

Mihika Reddy: Hi, my name is Mihika and I'm from Ellicott City, Maryland and I got my undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics and Statistics this past May 2014. During my time there I focused my studies on cellular and tissue engineering and worked in labs that focused on lung cancer, using nanoparticle technology for drug delivery. I'm working on a project in the preterm health space that will be the focus of my trip to Sevagram.