Executive Board 2024

Vanessa is an M.S. candidate in Biomedical Engineering from Nagoya, Japan, and Shanghai, China. She is an aspiring scientist in biomaterials, tissue engineering, and health equity. Vanessa’s current research at the Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering focuses on using engineered cardiac tissues to model and understand myocarditis in lupus patients.

Having served as the BME department representative in the Fall of 2022, Vanessa has come to appreciate the role of EGSC in advocating and supporting Columbia students. She looks forward to serving as the Interschool Chair with the goals of building a community amongst Columbia graduate students and fostering multidisciplinary discussions to tackle 21st-century problems.

In her free time, Vanessa can be found playing classical music, trying new restaurants, and exploring New York City.

Please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected].

Vanessa is an M.S. candidate in Biomedical Engineering from Nagoya, Japan, and Shanghai, China. She is an aspiring scientist in biomaterials, tissue engineering, and health equity. Vanessa’s current research at the Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering focuses on using engineered cardiac tissues to model and understand myocarditis in lupus patients.

Having served as the BME department representative in the Fall of 2022, Vanessa has come to appreciate the role of EGSC in advocating and supporting Columbia students. She looks forward to serving as the Interschool Chair with the goals of building a community amongst Columbia graduate students and fostering multidisciplinary discussions to tackle 21st-century problems.

In her free time, Vanessa can be found playing classical music, trying new restaurants, and exploring New York City.

Please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected].

Hi! I am a 3rd year PhD student in Dr. Helen Lu's lab, working on biomaterials, especially tissue engineering scaffolds. I am also the president of GoBME for 2023! 

I like exploring new hobbies in my free time, especially anything related to food!

Hello! I am Swati Hans and I am a first year Master's student in Electrical Engineering. I am a passionate hardware engineer and have a background in the semiconductor industry. Outside of work, I enjoy exploring new cultures through languages, travel, literature and food. I'm always on the lookout for outstanding recommendations in these realms, so don't hesitate to share your favorites with me!

Greetings, Everyone!

I'm Mili, currently pursuing a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering. My passions lie in the realms of EM Simulation, Electric Vehicles (EVs), and Sustainability. Beyond academics, I find joy in singing, dancing, and connecting with new individuals to uncover their fascinating life stories.

I firmly believe in the significance of amplifying student voices, hence, here I am as a member of EGSC, where I work towards supporting its mission to advocate for the welfare of graduate students within the SEAS community.

Hi! I’m Megan. I’m a first-year student in the BME Master’s program, after working for the last five years as a software engineer, and as a clinical research coordinator for a few years before that. I have an undergraduate degree in Mathematics, with minors in Biology and Chemistry. I’m interested in eventually pursuing my Ph.D. and doing regenerative tissue engineering research that is specifically related to cardiovascular and vascular diseases. I’m from Pennsylvania but lived in the Bay Area for a bit after college and have been a resident of NYC since 2020.

When I’m not on campus, you’ll find me swimming, biking, and running around NYC, baking in my kitchen, or snuggling with my cat. I have short hair in real life, but it is a recent change and I don’t have an updated headshot, so imagine my photo with 70% less hair and then say hi if we cross paths on campus!

Hi all, my name is Kim Kroupa and I am your EGSC President!

To me, EGSC has always been a place that students can turn to, whether it be for a fun time at one of our Carleton Socials, or for help when facing a challenge in their academic career.

This year I am looking forward to driving positive change in SEAS, advocating for student needs, and fostering a sense of community amongst our graduate students, within Columbia, and across NYC.

Please reach out to me at [email protected] with any questions, comments, or ideas for SEAS!

Hello everyone!

I’m Sravan, a fourth-year PhD student in Biomedical Engineering, working on autonomous magnetic resonance imaging.
I am learning to play the guitar (love music!) and enjoy gaming. I’m looking forward to meeting new people through EGSC! :)

Feel free to reach me at [email protected] if you have any questions, feedback or ideas for SEAS, or just want to grab a coffee!

^{I’ll stick to tea}

Current MS student, recent Bridge Program alumnus, perennial XR enthusiast. I majored in Geography and Philosophy at UC Santa Barbara and worked for two years (mapping where to build big renewable energy projects) before pivoting to study Computer Vision & Graphics here. Big fan of rocks and trees.

Hi, my name is Jacob and I’m a second year BME Ph.D. student co-advised by Dr. Alex Dranovsky and Dr. Andrew Laine. My research focuses on using deep learning methods to study how early life stress and aging alter brain-connectivity at the whole-brain level with cellular resolution.

I grew up in the Bay Area, California, and recently completed both my undergrad. and master's in the BME  department at Columbia. Outside of research and class, I’ve been on the Columbia ski club for 5 years and spend time building things as a superuser in the Columbia Maker Space. I’ve also  co-founded a startup, Colonai, that uses deep learning to detect and localize colorectal cancer in colonoscopy videos in order to reduce the miss rate that's ~24% of tumors in current practice and that recently took 1st place in the Columbia Venture Competition Tech Track.

Feel free to reach me at [email protected] if you have any questions, feedback or ideas for SEAS!

Hi, my name is Jacob and I’m a second year BME Ph.D. student co-advised by Dr. Alex Dranovsky and Dr. Andrew Laine. My research focuses on using deep learning methods to study how early life stress and aging alter brain-connectivity at the whole-brain level with cellular resolution.

I grew up in the Bay Area, California, and recently completed both my undergrad. and master's in the BME  department at Columbia. Outside of research and class, I’ve been on the Columbia ski club for 5 years and spend time building things as a superuser in the Columbia Maker Space. I’ve also  co-founded a startup, Colonai, that uses deep learning to detect and localize colorectal cancer in colonoscopy videos in order to reduce the miss rate that's ~24% of tumors in current practice and that recently took 1st place in the Columbia Venture Competition Tech Track.

Feel free to reach me at [email protected] if you have any questions, feedback or ideas for SEAS!

Howard Nicholson III is a second-year graduate student in the Biomedical Engineering M.S./Ph.D. Program. Born and raised in Maryland, Howard graduated from the University of Maryland Baltimore County with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a minor in music. At Columbia, Howard works under the mentorship of Dr Clark Hung in the Cellular Engineering Laboratory to understand how physical and chemical stimuli impact cells and tissues in order to incorporate these forces in strategies for developing functional tissue substitutes of clinical relevance. He is also interested in investigating how bias and racism may lead to inequity in healthcare and biomedical innovation.

Sen. Cheng Gong is a Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. candidate in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Cheng enjoys using the art of optics to solve healthcare and life sciences problems, and is attracted by lab-to-market biomedical innovation. As a University Senator, Cheng seeks to foster connections across schools and with the wider Columbia community. On the University Senate, Cheng co-chairs the Student Affairs and External Relations and Research Policy committees, and serves on the Executive Committee. He is a University Senate Representative to two committees of the Board of Trustees: 1) the Committee on Public Affairs of the Trustees of CU; 2) the Committee on Student Life of the Trustees of CU. He also chairs the Ph.D. Council of Columbia University.

Aside from school, he is a certificated wine taster and enthusiastic about gourmet food from different cultures, rolling in a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Gym, and visiting galleries & museums.

Please feel free to contact him if you have any questions or concerns regarding University Structure.

University Senate Website: https://senate.columbia.edu/committees/executive-committee 

Hi! I am a MS student in Biomedical Engineering with an expected graduation date in December 2023. I am greatly interested in the entrepreneurship and startup space in medical device innovation.

I grew up in Hyderabad, India and graduated from Georgia Tech with a BS in Biomedical Engineering. Before Columbia, I taught abroad at the National University of Ireland.

In my free time, I love to bake, run and go on hikes (I am currently training for a full marathon, wish me luck :)).Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected] for any questions, comments, and concerns. I’d love to hear any ideas or feedback so that I can ensure you have the best graduate student life!

I did my undergrad at the National Institute of Science and Technology, India in ECE. Being the president of the student body, my team and I successfully organized the Techno-Cultural Symposium.

Post that, I spent some time working in the semiconductor industry for CoreEL Technologies and Intel, where I gained domain knowledge and experience in various areas of ASIC and FPGA, like RTL design, Verification and Validation. During my career, I also actively participated in volunteering and other social activities.

Apart from this, I love running, reading books and travelling.

Hi! I'm Aarya Raghavan, a first year Master's student at the Biomedical Engineering department. I find the brain to be the most fascinating organ we possess. Neural engineering and neurorehabilitation are few topics that interest me! I work in Dr. Paul Sajda's lab delving into topics related to the functional connectivity of the brain.

I love listening to different types of music. Being a singer, you can find me humming to pretty much any genre while walking from one class to another. I basically live in libraries, they're my second home-love them, adore them and can't get enough of all the pretty libraries on campus!