Georgia Tech researcher W. Hong Yeo has been awarded a $3 million grant to help develop a new generation of engineers and scientists in the field of sustainable medical devices. 

“The workforce that will emerge from this program will tackle a global challenge through sustainable innovations in device design and manufacturing,” said Yeo, Woodruff Faculty Fellow and associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

The funding, from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Training (NRT) program, will address the environmental impacts resulting from the mass production of medical devices, including the increase in material waste and greenhouse gas emissions.

Under Yeo’s leadership, the Georgia Tech team comprises multidisciplinary faculty: Andrés García (bioengineering), HyunJoo Oh (industrial design and interactive computing), Lewis Wheaton (biology), and Josiah Hester (sustainable computing). Together, they’ll train 100 graduate students, including 25 NSF-funded trainees, who will develop reuseable, reliable medical devices for a range of uses. 

“We plan to educate students on how to develop medical devices using biocompatible and biodegradable materials and green manufacturing processes using low-cost printing technologies,” said Yeo. “These wearable and implantable devices will enhance disease diagnosis, therapeutics, rehabilitation, and health monitoring.”

Students in the program will be challenged by a comprehensive, multidisciplinary curriculum, with deep dives into bioengineering, public policy, physiology, industrial design, interactive computing, and medicine. And they’ll get real-world experience through collaborations with clinicians and medical product developers, working to create devices that meet the needs of patients and care providers.

The Georgia Tech NRT program aims to attract students from various backgrounds, fostering a diverse, inclusive environment in the classroom — and ultimately in the workforce.

The program will also introduce a new Ph.D. concentration in smart medical devices as part of Georgia Tech's bioengineering program, and a new M.S. program in the sustainable development of medical devices. Yeo also envisions an academic impact that extends beyond the Tech campus.

“Collectively, this NRT program's curriculum, combining methods from multiple domains, will help establish best practices in many higher education institutions for developing reliable and personalized medical devices for healthcare,” he said. “We’d like to broaden students' perspectives, move past the current technology-first mindset, and reflect the needs of patients and healthcare providers through sustainable technological solutions.”