Students must choose from one of the following immersion experiences prior to graduation. An offer to participate in any of the below programs is not guaranteed. Students have the following options:
Track A - Industry Immersion
Entry into this track prepares the student for industry (often with the hosting company) via coursework in the first two semesters (typically fall and spring) and a minimum 400 hour internship. The culminating experience in this track is a one- or two-semester industry internship (the second semester is optional). The internship experience can be obtained by the student working at the company, or alternately by the company sponsoring a medical device project at a faculty lab. In the latter scenario, it is mandatory that the company appoint a co-advisor/mentor for the student to direct the project in collaboration with the faculty member. The industry internship should involve deep immersion in the process of medical device design and/or manufacturing, and/or testing, and the student should be able to articulate this experience in a final report submitted to the M.Eng. program director for approval. In addition, the mentor from the company is required to provide an independent evaluation of the student to the M.Eng. program director at the end of the internship experience. The latter is done via a separate online survey.
IMPORTANT: Students are responsible for securing their own internship. To assist with this process, information about several internship opportunities is made available to the students throughout the year. Some companies from the biomedical industry also visit campus at various times throughout the year to conduct interviews for paid internships in which they have openings. Under the guidance and direction of faculty advisors, students will secure qualified and approved industry internships.
Internships must last a minimum of 400 hours and may be extended if there is mutual interest between the student and employer. The student will be expected to function as a full-time employee, regardless of pay or number of hours registered. It is up to the company and student to agree on a payment arrangement. There is no program requirement mandating that students have to be paid. Intellectual property and confidentiality issues must be dealt with prior to accepting the internship. Students may work for companies owned by Texas A&M BMEN faculty; however, the internship supervisor may NOT be a faculty member.
Students will register for 1 hour of BMEN 684 (in-absentia if the internship is over 50 miles from Bryan/College Station) per semester that they are participating in the internship. Students will have to pay tuition and fees for the internship hour(s) for which they are registered. In order to register for internship hours, students must fill out the Graduate BMEN Variable Course Approval Form and obtain their committee chair’s signature. The completed form and a complete job description should be turned in to the graduate advisor.
Track B - Translational Immersion Fellows Program
This track is available for those students who are competitively awarded translational fellowships by faculty interested in having M.Eng. students work on translational research and product development projects in their lab. This track prepares students to work on developing product prototypes and test beds for new exciting ideas and patents coming out of research labs, and provides the students a real-world experience in developing the technical and commercialization pathways for new medical devices and products, paving the way for the formation of new startup ventures. Students’ participation in this track is approved based on demonstrated interest by an admitted student who is in Track A in the first semester but is able to identify a faculty member who is willing to accept the student into their group and fund them on a translational project. Students who choose this track should be interested in productization and testing of early stage medical technologies to establish the technological feasibility prior to startup venture formation.
This translational immersion must last for ~350-400 hours and should end in a final presentation of their work. The student must work 40 hours/week over a semester (typically the summer term) or alternately can work up to 20-30 hours/week over a two-semester period (fall-spring terms) to get academic credit. The translational innovation projects focus on a wide range of activities including but not limited to comprehensive product design, manufacturing, testing, developing software algorithms, test bed development and test results, or a technology commercialization case study.
Students will register for 1 hour of BMEN 684 (in-absentia if the internship is over 50 miles from Bryan/College Station) per semester that they are participating in the immersion. Students will have to pay tuition and fees for the hour(s) for which they are registered. In order to register, students must fill out the Graduate BMEN Variable Course Approval Form and obtain their committee chair’s signature. The completed form and a complete project description should be turned in to the graduate advisor.
Track C - Clinical Immersion Fellows Program
The Clinical Immersion Fellows Program depends on availability of funds and typically runs during the summer semesters (and occasionally during fall and spring) competitively recruits students to learn and apply the biodesign methodology toward developing innovation opportunities for medical devices and technologies in various clinical specialty areas and disease states. This program trains Fellows teams to collaborate with clinicians and utilizes clinical immersion in various area hospitals (e.g., College Station, Temple, Houston) to identify clinical problems, develop needs statements and needs criteria in specific clinical specialties. Fellows apply ethnography/contextual inquiry, the biodesign methodology (Identify, Ideate, Invent), brainstorming/mind mapping, product concept development and evaluation, concept prototyping, and in many cases generate intellectual property/invention disclosures towards a provisional patent application. A typical outcome of this clinical fellowship is a final presentation on the innovation pipeline opportunities identified by the Fellows over the course of the program. Applications for the summer session of the program are usually announced by the clinical fellowship director (Dr. Haridas) during late fall or early spring of each year. Clinical immersion opportunities for fall-spring sessions are announced on an ad-hoc basis, with students being selected competitively based on an application process.
The clinical fellows immersion must last for ~350-400 hours and should end in a final presentation of their work. Fellows typically work full time (30-40 hours/week) over a semester (usually the summer term) or alternately can work ~20 hours/week over a 2 semester period (fall-spring terms) to get academic credit.
Students will register for 1 hour of BMEN 684 (per semester that they are participating in the clinical immersion. Students will have to pay tuition and fees for the hour(s) for which they are registered. In order to register, students must fill out the Graduate BMEN Variable Course Approval Form and obtain their committee chair’s signature. The completed form and a complete project description should be turned in to the graduate advisor.
Students will have to pay tuition and fees for the course for which they are registered. Students that choose to accept their offer to join the BioInnovation Fellowship Program will be placed in the class.