Congratulations to Saud Lingawi on completing his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at SBME. Driven by both innovation and personal experience, Saud’s work reflects a commitment to advancing healthcare technologies that can make a life-saving impact.
We asked Saud a few questions about his experiences doing his PhD at SBME.
Why did you decide to study biomedical engineering at UBC?
Coming from a background in biomaterials, I have always been drawn to the porous interface between engineering and medicine. My specific transition to wearable device-focused physiological monitoring within biomedical engineering was inspired by a dear friend losing his life to a sudden, unexpected cardiac arrest. This experience made me shift my entire research trajectory, which would have only been possible thanks to the mentorship and interdisciplinarity that I found in SBME.
Can you please share a couple highlights from your time in SBME? Favourite projects? Notable achievements?
When reflecting on my experience as a graduate student in SBME, both as an MEng and PhD student, the first highlight that comes to mind is my time with the Engineers in Scrubs program. Going through that program as a student, TA, and co-instructor fundamentally defined the way I approach engineering design, and it is thanks to that program and its leadership that I have been able to file an invention disclosure for my thesis work and co-found a commercial venture, VitaPulse.
What was the most fascinating project you got to be a part of or piece of knowledge that you learned in SBME?
Sharing a close community with graduate students doing research in a number of very different fields, all within biomedical engineering, taught me that when things seem fragmented from a distance, a closer look will reveal that everything is connected. Across fields, there are always similarities that connect us to each other. That insight alone goes beyond academics and research, it reinforces the importance of community in all it has to offer.
How do you feel being a part of student groups/SBME shaped your experience on campus?
I have had the privilege of being at UBC for over a decade, as a student through undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees, but also as a staff member. Throughout this time, I have been involved in an array of student groups and admin roles, such as being the co-director of the Mental Health Network, the Advocacy Coordinator at the Graduate Student Society, and the Graduate Program Liaison in BMEGA. All three of these roles involved representing students’ needs and fighting for their voices to be heard, and all three of these roles have allowed me to navigate our campus from a lens of compassion and belonging.
What do you find so exciting about biomedical engineering?
Biomedical engineering, as a term, is beautifully vague. From genomics to biomechanics, from electronics to materials, biomedical engineering intersects all of these fields with the core belief that technology has the ability to impact peoples lives for the better. That, in particular, is what excites me the most about this field.
What are your plans for the future or next steps?
My time at UBC is not quite done yet! Since completing my PhD, I have started as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Emergency Medicine, where I continue (but broaden) some of my cardiac arrest research to develop large-scale deep learning models to detect a wider range of critical illnesses on commercial wearables, in real clinical settings and in community. Simultaneously, I am the Research Program Coordinator at lululemon, assisting in the management of a wide range of biomedical research informed by human perception and movement, and I am actively building up my start-up venture VitaPulse.