My name is Warren Buzzell Jr. and I am a first year Biomedical Engineering PhD Candidate at Stony Brook University. In 2018, I earned a Bachelors in Science in Manufacturing Engineering from Robert Morris University. During my senior year, I conducted research with Dr. Rika Carlsen on her project “The Modeling of Traumatic Brain Injury” which ignited my interest in the biological aspect of engineering. Prior to this experience, my plans after my undergraduate career was to continue working at Vitro. Vitro is an automotive glass manufacturing company where I interned. Dr. Carlsen provided me the opportunity to use my knowledge in computer aided engineering and design to assist with her analysis of the brain during traumatic brain injuries. I was tasked with remodeling and 3D printing brain and skull molds for experiments. I also had the opportunity to fabricate polyvinyl alcohol hydrogels.

I pursued a Manufacturing Engineering degree because I was intrigued by courses like Rapid Prototyping and Reverse Engineering, Product and Tool Design, Simulation, and Device Control.  These courses taught me advanced engineering techniques such as 3D printing, CNC machining, how to run simulations using Arena software, and Ladder Logic. They provided a fundamental understanding of contemporary manufacturing and the steps required to develop and commercialize a product. Courses such as Statics and Strengths of Materials, Production Engineering, and Calculus helped me develop a strong quantitative background needed to assess and solve  complex real-world mathematical problems. Physics, Chemistry, and Biology Labs taught me the basics of manipulating experimental data to gain comparable qualitative and quantitative data for analysis.