Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering majors Elise Nielsen, Eleanor Stevens, and Duncan Stewart-Jackson pose with their award at the 2024 Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting.

Mechanical Engineering Professor Tommaso Lenzi’s HGN Lab for Bionic Engineering is no stranger to accolades; Lenzi and his colleagues build robotic prosthetics that are as futuristic as they are life-changing. Its Utah Bionic Leg, the first of its kind with powered knee, ankle, and toe joints, earned a place on TIME Magazine’s Inventions of the Year list in 2023, and was just named Breakthrough of the Year at the University of Utah Innovation Awards.

Now, three undergraduates from the lab have taken home another prize, as part of the NIH’s Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) Challenge.

DEBUT, co-sponsored by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and VentureWell, sees teams of undergraduate students demonstrate their research on innovative biomedical devices. A panel of expert judges from six other NIH Institutes and partners then awards prizes in a series of categories based on the project’s ability to address unmet health needs in that field.

Read the full story on the John and Marcia Price College of Engineering Website.