How do we prepare students for a changing world while supporting faculty? The 6th BME Education Summit breaks down silos, uniting academic and industry leaders to address challenges in BME education.
Event Actions
About the Summit
Join us in Virginia—a booming hub for academic, government, and bioengineering industry—for the BMES Council of Chairs' Sixth Biomedical Engineering Education Summit on May 25-27, 2027. This invitation-only summit integrates perspectives across all career levels and academic-industry-clinical pipelines.
Four Tracks
Track 1: Supportive Learning Environments in a Disruptive Era
Explore immediate, ethical, and practical pedagogical updates to ensure equitable, inclusive, and accessible learning. Key focus areas include leveraging GenAI for engineering design, navigating the ethics of AI in the classroom, and utilizing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) frameworks to support students with disabilities.
Track 2: Student Success through Faculty Wellness
Address faculty burnout to sustain long-term program excellence. This track explores sustainable strategies to balance workloads, minimize overwhelm, and support teaching innovation, with dedicated topics for department chairs on mentoring mid-career faculty and navigating program funding challenges.
Track 3: High-Impact Experiential Learning Practices
Connect hands-on, high-impact practices directly to curricular outcomes. Sessions will focus on the intentional integration of undergraduate research mentoring, clinical immersion, internship programs, and design/prototyping initiatives to prepare graduates for a complex professional landscape.
Track 4: Connections to the BME Workplace
Align academic programs with the rapid diversification of the bioengineering industry. Discover successful strategies for academic-industry-clinical collaboration, including local alumni mentoring networks, professional development hubs, and entrepreneurial ecosystem partnerships that boost student career readiness.
Host Organizations & Planning Committee
University of Virginia Department of Biomedical Engineering
Brian Helmke, Associate Professor and Faculty Consultant for the Center for Teaching Excellence
Shannon Barker, Professor and Director of the Undergraduate Program
William Guilford, Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Affairs
Shayn Peirce-Cottler, Professor and Chair
George Mason University Department of Bioengineering
Shani Ross, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Undergraduate Programs
Ketul Popat, Professor and Chair
Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Biomedical Engineering
Jennifer Jordan, Associate Professor and ABET Coordinator
Rebecca Heise, Professor and Chair
Virginia Tech Department of Biomedical Engineering
Vincent Wang, Associate Professor and Director of the Industry Partners Program
Miguel Perez, Associate Professor and Chair
About the Venue
The University of Virginia
UVA is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the birthplace of a uniquely American educational vision featuring Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village and Rotunda. Just as Jefferson designed the Academical Village to foster learning, student-faculty engagement, and enlightened self-governance, the Sixth BME Education Summit will gather leaders to design the future of BME pedagogy and workforce training. The UVA Grounds in Charlottesville comprise 12 schools within walking distance of each other, including the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Medicine, and the School of Data Science.
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville hosts a rapidly growing bioscience industry networked by the CvilleBioHub, representing companies from diverse business sectors and a range of growth stages. Of note, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, and Merck have recently committed a total of over $12B to building new manufacturing facilities in the local region.
Virginia Guesthouse
The Virginia Guesthouse is a hotel and conference center located on the University of Virginia's Emmet-Ivy Corridor in Charlottesville. Serving as a welcoming "front door" for the university, the property features 25,000 square feet of event space, a student-staffed Welcome Center, and dining spots like the Poplar restaurant and The Perch rooftop bar.
Travel
- Air: The Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport (CHO) offers direct flights from Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago O'Hare, LaGuardia, and Washington Dulles.
- Rail: Amtrak's Charlottesville station is located one mile from the campus.