This year’s event featured a mix of faculty and student research talks, poster presentations, networking opportunities, and recognition of outstanding student achievement.
About 200 attendees gathered at NCRC for a day of faculty and student research presentations, student awards and the annual Glenn V. Edmonson Lecture on May 13, featuring Carnegie Mellon’s Adam Feinberg, Ph.D.
Intended to build the BME community across campus, the annual symposium provides a forum for faculty and students, along with collaborators, to present current research progress and discuss future research opportunities at the interface of engineering and medicine. This year’s event featured a mix of faculty and student research talks, poster presentations, networking opportunities, and recognition of outstanding student achievement.
The event also included the Glenn V. Edmonson Lecture, which honors the legacy of the first graduate chair of U-M BME’s Biomedical Engineering program. In 2026, BME marks its 30th year as an official academic department, and BME is celebrating Dr Edmonson’s role in its creation and evolution. This year’s lecture was delivered by Adam Feinberg, Ph.D., Professor of Regenerative Biomaterials and Therapeutics in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, with a courtesy appointment in Mechanical Engineering, at Carnegie Mellon University.
Dr. Feinberg highlighted Freeform Reversible Embedding of Suspended Hydrogels (FRESH), which can 3D bioprint collagen, fibrin, decellularized ECM, growth factors, and a wide range of cell types into complex 3D architectures.
The BME symposium showcased the depth and breadth of student research through poster and oral presentations. This year’s winners were:
Poster presentation winners
Talk presentation winners
The department also recognized the 2026 Glenn V. Edmonson Scholarship recipients. This year, the awards reflected a highly competitive nomination process, with 94 nominations submitted for 51 students. Thanks to the generosity of the Edmonson Family, including Mrs. Trenna Ruffner and her sister, Rebecca Palmer, BME awarded scholarships to four exceptional students. These awards recognize excellence in the classroom, research, and service, including recipients who have authored papers and led research projects. Students were nominated by members of the BME community.
The 2026 Edmonson scholarship awardees were:
Sriranjani Seshadri — Excellence in Research
Seshadri was recognized for outstanding research productivity and leadership. She presented five conference abstracts, culminating in a podium presentation at the World Congress of Biomechanics, and is preparing three first-author publications for submission. She also has provided steady leadership in her lab.
Cole Weber — Excellence in Teaching
Weber was honored for exceptional teaching contributions and initiative. He provided outstanding classroom support during a critical period of course coverage, demonstrated strong leadership and led independent research that generated new methods now being used in the lab.
Kyoungmo Koo — Exceptional Research and Leadership
Koo was recognized for excellence in research, academics and community leadership. He authored two first-author publications, with a third manuscript in preparation, excelled academically and played an active leadership role in the U-M community.
Mira Mutnick — Exemplary Leadership and Research
Mutnick was honored for meaningful contributions to teaching, service and research. She has mentored students, guest lectured and engaged in multiple organizations. She also authored an accepted EMBS conference paper and was invited to deliver an expanded presentation.
Together, the symposium and Edmonson Lecture celebrated the strength of U-M BME’s campus-wide community and the department’s ongoing commitment to research, education and collaboration in service of human health.