My fellowship this summer will be working with the ASSIST (Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies) program at NC State under Doctor Gail Jones and Doctor Jess Jurr. This is a cooperative program between several different departments at NC State (the lead institution) and other institutions here in the US and overseas. The goal is to create self powered wearable healthcare devices that will be able to monitor multiple different data points on an individual. The data will then communicate with someone’s smartphone using Bluetooth to then alert the user or upload to a server to alert the appropriate doctors if the user should take any healthcare preventative measures.

A big part of the ASSIST program is collaboration between multiple disciplines to reach their goal. Another important part of the program is the education of the program including the “One Health” types of problems they are trying to solve as well as the ethical issues that surround the device. This is where I as a teacher come in.

During the course of this summer I along with 13 other Kenan Fellows will be learning about this device. Everything from the various types of technologies being brought together to create it, the science behind these technologies on the nanoscale, the engineering planning and design process, their reasons for developing the new technology and the ethical issues surrounding the new device.

As an educator my role will be to bring back what I learned from this experience to my classroom to motivate students to pursue careers in STEM related fields, taking into consideration that not everyone has to be a scientist, technologist, engineer, or mathematician to work in a STEM related field.

During our work we will develop three lesson plans that we can implement in our classroom using the things we’ve learned this summer. We will also be working through the planning and design process to make a hypothetical device that will be placed on an animal, taking into account the One Health Initiative for animals, humans, and the environment.

As of 7/6/14 this is where we are. As I learn more about the program and notice I need to make changes to this page I will. Stay Tuned!

Pictured Above: Hannah Maxwell, Nick Tisci, Lauran Lawrence, Doctor Gail Jones, and Me (James Lamberth)

In this picture we are preparing to tear down a Nike Fuelband