“I am incredibly grateful to the College of Engineering and the Weldon School for this honor,” said Anwar. “I have had wonderful experiences with the school and the faculty's support and knowledge have fostered an environment where I actively searched to apply skills I learned in the school to outside experiences."

Asem Aboelzahab, Lead Instructional Labs and Senior Design Projects Coordinator nominated Anwar. 

“Raishma has blown me away with her professional and mature demeanor, true impact, willingness to put in the work to make a difference and her commitment to service for her peers, the university and the greater society.”

Anwar plans to pursue a career in medicine. As the incoming president of the Caduceus Club, she looks to create opportunities for pre-med students to gain critical experience through clinical shadowing and volunteering opportunities. She has collated a library of literature resources for pre-med students to prepare for their medical journey.

Anwar founded Project Icarus to increase awareness of healthcare disparities in Indiana, particularly relating to the homeless population. Creating opportunities to educate students on this issue, leading independent research to study root causes of the problem and building relationships and collaborations with the IU School of Medicine to increase free healthcare clinics for the community are just some of the initiatives she has led in this role.

Anwar has taken on student advisory board roles for Purdue University Student Health and Purdue Student Life to advocate for students.

As co-director of Boilers in Action for the past two years, Anwar has lead student service events each year like physically cleaning up areas in the Greater Lafayette community.

This past summer, Anwar was an intern for Assemblymember Bauer-Kahan in the California State House, representing her hometown.

Anwar excels in the classroom, demonstrating outstanding project management, engineering design and analytic abilities. As a member of Keith Stantz’s lab, she has contributed to breast cancer research, developing a programmed neural network to determine blood oxygen levels of tissue from CT scans.

Through EPICS, Anwar worked on a collaboration with Dr. Diane Hountz from Purdue Nursing. The team was challenged with developing a solution to help improve feeding tube placement without the need for expensive verification methods such as a CT scan. Anwar was dedicated to finding a solution, resulting in the design of a smart feeding tube attachment that helps nurses verify the location of the tube via sound during the insertion and its final placement at the appropriate depth within the stomach.

The team tested their system in the Nursing SimLab. It started discussions with Purdue incubators and the Office of Technology and Commercialization to discuss their device's patenting and commercial viability. The novel application of this technology is unique and fills a critical gap that can bring assurance and cost savings to patients and healthcare providers.

Anwar is a member of the sixth class of Purdue Engineering Fellows. The College of Engineering selects Fellows based on the strong nomination forms received focusing on critical thinking, problem-solving, and positive peer relations. The Fellows Award was established by Bob Buckman (BSChE’59).

Read more about the seven seniors selected as Purdue Engineering Fellows.