Sharon Miller, associate professor of engineering practice at the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and assistant vice provost for Purdue University in Indianapolis.

Purdue University in Indianapolis launched on July 1, 2024, ending a long-standing collaboration between Purdue University and Indiana University at what was called Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Purdue University in Indianapolis is an expansion of Purdue West Lafayette, with multiple locations throughout the city of Indianapolis. It bookends America’s Hard Tech Corridor, which extends from West Lafayette to downtown Indianapolis, and it positions our students, faculty and staff in close proximity to top businesses and leading industries, providing new and unique executive education and internship opportunities.

Among the Purdue faculty in Indianapolis is Sharon Miller, associate professor of engineering practice at the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and assistant vice provost for Purdue University in Indianapolis. Some years ago, Miller fused an early passion for and interest in materials with their potential utilization for the human body; specifically, how biomaterials can be used to help regain lost function or augment performance. During her own graduate student studies, she was given the opportunity to give her fellow graduate students a guest lecture in biomaterials. The pleasure and excitement she got from that motivated her to pursue a teaching career herself, so she could bring her expertise to classroom halls, seminar rooms and research labs to stimulate and inspire students.

What is your research focus; what investigative avenue are you pursuing?

My research activity focuses on discipline-based educational research (DBER) in biomedical engineering. I use mix-methods research to study how team-based engineering design projects throughout an undergraduate curriculum affect BME student engineering design. A second area of research investigates how clinical immersion experiences affect biomedical engineering students’ ability to critically reflect on their design decisions to advance medical innovation.

The goal of my research is to identify challenging and impactful educational experiences for biomedical engineering students to ensure they are well-prepared for the workforce. Training students in all aspects of BME design, including user need identification and teaming, is an important first step, no matter if a student pursues an industry, academic, or professional career after earning a bachelor's degree in the field. In a specific example, my work aims to create curricular opportunities for students to help close the gap between academic learning and practical demands of engineering by helping engineers-in-training consider healthcare inequities during the design process.

How vital is it for you to be in Indianapolis?

It means that my students and I can directly benefit from our proximity to the numerous medical professionals that work alongside us in the city, while still maintaining access to Purdue’s engineering labs and makerspace. I am a senior capstone design project instructor, and dozens of Indianapolis-based medical professionals have sponsored these projects throughout the years. Student teams capitalize on the closeness to the medical campus in Indianapolis at the Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) by meeting weekly or bi-weekly with their physician project sponsors. Other BME students benefit from conferring with patients, medical professionals and industry professionals supporting healthcare. The convenience of working alongside professionals in Indianapolis has also afforded us opportunities to design curricular experiences for students at different stages of their undergraduate careers. For example, our junior BME students in Indianapolis work on projects supported by Riley Children’s Hospital before they embark on a year-long capstone experience as seniors.

As co-director of the (IN)SCRIBE (INdiana Summer Clinical Residency in Innovation for Biomedical Engineers) program, I value the ability to create immersion experiences in a variety of clinical spaces in Indianapolis. (IN)SCRIBE provides undergraduate BME students rotational experiences in clinical and procedure-based medicine while also engaging in design training. To date, (IN)SCRIBE has provided over 8,000 hours of clinical immersion through dozens of medical professionals representing more than 12 different clinical disciplines (e.g., cardiology).

What is your philosophy of teaching?

I strive to motivate and inspire students to become independent biomedical engineers that lead with integrity and empathy. While each student can leave the BME program adept at engineering design, I challenge my students to consider all stakeholders and perspectives during the design process. Biomedical engineering students are particularly motivated, and often see a direct connection between their discipline and helping people. I have found that treating students with respect and truly supporting them through both challenging and celebratory times provides an educational environment that promotes their success. The students themselves continually challenge me to adapt my course materials and to create new ways of engaging them both virtually and in-person.

What was your path like prior to present day?

My high school physics teacher invited a Purdue faculty member from the School of Materials Engineering to speak with our class. The topic was essentially “Breaking stuff can be cool!”, and it was extremely engaging. He emphasized the different classes of materials and the different reasons why materials fail — or don’t fail — and that intrigued me enough to enroll in the Materials Science and Engineering BS program at Purdue. During my time at Purdue, I had a variety of work experiences, including a steel mill co-op and medical device company internship. When my interest in materials intersected with the human body, I became fascinated in how we can use biomaterials to regain lost function or to augment performance. Following these interests, I earned my MS and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan, where my thesis work focused on identifying materials and molecules that can assist in bone healing. In my time at Michigan, I was given a chance to guest lecture in a graduate-level biomaterials course, which motivated me to seek external teaching opportunities. My trajectory from there was to find professional opportunities that would allow me to bring my areas of expertise to the classroom to inspire others.

Prior to joining Purdue, my previous academic appointments include experiences at private not-for-profit institutions, where I have accrued seven teaching and faculty awards and taught 27 distinct courses (20 of them I developed). My early work focused on programs for students and educators within the P-20 system (state-based educational databases that chronicle student data from preschool through higher education), and I contributed toward the curriculum development of the John C. Dunham STEM Partnership School and the Michael J. Birck Center for Innovation in Illinois. My leadership positions in Indianapolis since include assistant vice provost, associate department chair, and undergraduate program director experiences.

Whether it is a class assignment or university-wide initiative, I truly enjoy creating educational experiences that captivate students while they learn.

What about your future? What are you looking to accomplish in this field?

My future goals are to continue to support, create and explore excellent educational opportunities for Purdue students in Indianapolis. Within BME, I aim to recruit relevant and meaningful capstone projects that challenge students to apply their biomedical engineering design knowledge and skills. I am also passionate about connecting students with their community in ways that support their learning, and in that pursuit, I will continue to bring engaged partners to students and programs as we collectively aim to design accessible and equitable medical innovations and therapies.

Might you share with us a little window into your personality; some distinctive trait, habit of mind, hobby/pursuit outside work…?

Outside work, I very much enjoy nature (from hiking to gardening), reading and spending time with my husband and two teenage boys. Our journeys are filled with music, exploring, and for some reason I have become particularly good at making sugar cookies with royal icing.