Author: Alyssandra Marie Navarro | Major: Biomedical Engineering | Semester: Fall 2024

I am Alyssandra Navarro, and I am a senior majoring in Biomedical Engineering. This year I
attended the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland to
present my research at a platform session. My research analyzes engineering education and
learning disparities between different groups of students in regards to a clinical immersion class.
By focusing on what areas there are gaps in student efficacy and self-confidence, we can begin
to understand the differences that historically and non-historically marginalized students may
experience in their engineering careers.

Presenting my Research at my Platform Session

The platform session that my talk was assigned was under Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. I was
very nervous as out of the six speakers, I was the only undergraduate speaker. By the time that
it was my turn, I had a big turnout. After the presentation, I got a lot of questions and really good
feedback. I got some constructive criticism about my way of analysis of students, which I am
taking into consideration moving forward. I was also very grateful to have this opportunity that
most undergraduates don’t receive and practice my public speaking skills. The whole session
was very eye-opening and inspirational to me, with the talks ranging from mental health,
different teaching methods in class, and ways that mentors and teachers should handle
students. I got the opportunity to talk to some of the speakers afterward which was really
interesting to me, as they were more educated than I was.

If I had to give advice to students going to research conferences, I would say to talk to as many
people as you can. At this conference, there were so many aspiring, intelligent researchers and
innovators. Besides my presentation, over the span of the conference, I visited as many posters
as I could to get research ideas not just for the research that I presented but also for my honors
thesis. There were many posters about 3D bioprinting that I was particularly fascinated by. By
the end, I think I visited over 30 posters with a variety of different topics that I had never heard
of. I not only gained a lot of knowledge, but I also gained ideas moving forward as well as
valuable connections.

Besides the conference, I had the opportunity to explore the city in my down time. I had never
been to Baltimore previously. I got together with some of my fellow students and explored the
city including the harbor and Federal Hill. We even decided to take a short trip to Washington
DC, where we walked around and visited all of the important buildings. Through this experience,
I was able to get closer to my fellow peers, some of which I had been in class with for years, so
it felt good to finally connect with everyone.

I enjoyed the conference way more than I anticipated, and I am excited to attend again in the
future. I am still working on my research and further analyzing the data by separating the results
into more specific demographics and generating more graphs for better insights. I expect to turn
this research into a full paper by the end of the year.