Rupak Dua (on the left), accepting awards at the Annual Reception of National AEMB at Seattle, WA
This year at BMES annual conference held at Seattle, WA, AEMB FIU chapter won three prestigious national awards at the annual reception of Alpha Eta Mu Beta National Biomedical Honor Society on October 26th 2013.
The first major award is, the “Most Active Chapter Award”. This award is given to the chapter that has shown remarkable involvement in the department, on campus and within the community. This award has been won by the FIU chapter five times in a row, including this year.
Not only making FIU proud at the national level, AEMB FIU Chapter has been consistently ranked as the most active organization within FIU. Under the presidentship of Rupak Dua, (Final year, PhD candidate at the Biomedical Engineering Department, FIU), AEMB won the “Overall Outstanding Organization Award” amongst 200 active student organizations at FIU, with approximately 38,000 registered students in the academic year 2012-2013.
The second national award bagged by the AEMB FIU Chapter is the “Best Community Award”. This award recognizes a chapter that has been actively involved in their department, school or community through a significant event that brings a positive change and contribution to the community. Our AEMB-FIU chapter was involved in the outreach program with Miami West middle school to promote an interest in STEM fields. This program was initiated by Rupak Dua under the guidance of his club faculty advisor Dr. Anthony McGoron and with the help of Stephanie Strange who is the director of the Office of Student Access and Success in engineering center, FIU. For the same service, Rupak Dua earlier, in May 2013, was awarded the “UGS Provost award” by the Graduate school at FIU.
Last but not the least; the AEMB FIU Chapter’s Vice President Vishal Rampersad (M.S. student at BME, FIU) won the “Outstanding Member Chapter Award”. This award recognizes an AEMB chapter member who has had good involvement in chapter activities and events, and has served as a positive role model within the chapter and the department. Vishal deeply believes in the value of biomedical research and is interested in promoting its awareness through different platforms. He possesses an open forum for exchange of ideas and team effort. He was not only involved in the social events conducted by AEMB FIU chapter, but his active involvement in the development of outreach program and his efforts in trying to set up the collaboration with other neighboring AEMB chapters has been remarkable.
Once again congratulations to AEMB FIU chapter for winning the national awards and making the BME department and FIU proud at the national level.