Dhowan received the award from Jischke at the Center for Intercultural Learning, Mentorship, Assessment, and Research reception in March and will be honored during Purdue's commencement ceremonies May 12-14. She will receive a cash award and her name inscribed on an award marker in Schleman Hall.

Nominators praised Dhowan for maintaining a high academic standard while successfully completing the rigorous biomedical engineering program. While at Purdue, she received the Women in Engineering Scholarship two years in a row and maintained her status on the Dean’s List and Semester Honors.

She became an undergraduate researcher in January 2016 under Hugh Lee, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and worked on creating an implantable drug delivery device for combating opioid overdose-related deaths. She presented her research at the national Biomedical Engineering Society Conference in 2016.  Her passion for research led her to pursue a 5^th year master’s program in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, which is reserved for students exhibiting high scholarship in their undergraduate careers.

A nominator stated that “Bahar is a natural leader, and one admirable attribute of hers is that she never backs down from a challenge.” She naturally emerges as a leader on team projects and has held several prominent national and international leadership roles.

She is president of the Alpha Eta Mu Beta (AEMB) National BME Honors Society Purdue Chapter and the president of the AEMB National Chapter. In this role, she resides over tens of chapters throughout the United States and leads an executive committee of both students and faculty to help establish professional development opportunities for the society’s members, recruit new university chapters, and organize ethics and research seminars that the organization sponsors each year at the national conference.

Dhowan also has created and participated in service projects in both her India and Purdue communities. She is the creator and president of an NGO called Harikrishandas Charitable Trust that supports education for underprivileged children in her home of Mumbai, India. Not only was she a math, science, and English tutor for high school students through this program, but as the president she has raised enough funding to support 24 children through their high school career and collaborated with industry partners to establish sustainable sponsoring programs for children in Mumbai.

She also taught courses in Math and English at the Lafayette Adult Resource Center and served as a mentor for younger children in the Purdue community through her work in the Women in Engineering Program. 

Dhowan is known to be very hard-working. While working on her senior design project, one nominator recalled, “Bahar put countless hours into this project and was in the lab at times till late in the night troubleshooting and testing the team’s design. This dedication to her work was outstanding.”

Dhowan is also characterized by her nominators as engaging, authentic, approachable, welcoming, inquisitive, creative, and innovative. One nominator wrote that “Bahar has the personality and the drive to be successful in whatever path she chooses.”

Photos:

Top: Bahar Dhowan

Bottom: Martin C. Jischke presents Bahar Dhowan with the Martin C. Jischke Outstanding International Student of the Year Award at the Center for Intercultural Learning, Mentorship, Assessment, and Research reception.