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HEC Senior Team Shines at Design Showcase

Team members collageA UT Tyler Houston Engineering Center senior design team was recognized at the 2021 UT Dallas Excellence in Senior Design Showcase, winning the “Making a Difference” category award. The team of electrical engineering majors, now all May 2021 graduates, developed a point-of-care device for rapid and real-time detection of inflammatory protein biomarkers.

Team members recognized were Zeeshan Shaikh of Pennsylvania, Luis Trevino of Dallas, Armstrong Otieno of Kenya, Claude Larrieux of Haiti and Miguel Gomez Gonzalez of El Salvador. Tanzila Noushin of Bangladesh, a UT Tyler graduate student at the Tyler campus, also assisted the team with related data and experiments.

“Imagine, what would the world be like today if we had such a device to diagnose COVID-19 in just five seconds at the bedside or at home before any symptoms even appear,” said Dr. Shawana Tabassum, UT Tyler assistant professor and faculty adviser. “The world would have been different than what it is today, and that's exactly where this project will hopefully lead us.”

During the showcase, collegiate teams create a poster about their project and present a pitch to a diverse audience in three minutes or less. The goal was to, in part, “Save the human race. . .­ all in a senior design project! Your project takes into consideration impact on public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental and economic factors,” according to category details.

Tabassum said such events are vital for students’ professional development.

“Generally engineering students do not get a lot of training on pitching their idea/project in front of a wide audience, and this senior design showcase gave them that wonderful opportunity,” Tabassum added. “I am extremely proud of the team – nothing could stop them from achieving their goals, and my graduate student, Tanzila, did a great job in helping the team as well.”

Electrical engineering seniors at both the Tyler and Houston campuses complete capstone projects as a requirement for the completion of their bachelor’s degree.

Shaikh is now an electronics engineer for the federal government. He said he appreciated the opportunity to participate in the showcase and collaborate with his classmates while connecting with business leaders and professional engineers in various industry sectors.

“Winning this award confirmed my feeling that we all were part of something special,” Shaikh said. “As a result of our efforts, we accomplished something that compared favorably with the best offerings from other universities. We worked hard all year, and it was the perfect way to end my time at UT Tyler.”

Tabassum said the group began their work during the fall 2020 semester, and Noushin will continue work on the sensor portion of the project. For more information, email Tabassum at stabassum@uttyler.edu

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