This Month's Featured Essay
To commemorate this important milestone we are collecting stories and reflections from our faculty, students, and alumni about the impact and significance of the department of bioengineering.
March Featured Essay by Saumya Tiwari
When I look back on the 20-year journey of the Bioengineering Department at The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, I’m both proud and amazed by how far the field has come, and excited by how far it still can go. I’ve been fortunate to witness this evolution from multiple angles: first as a student immersed in a truly interdisciplinary training, and later as a biotech startup cofounder, engaging with teams that blend biology, engineering, and data science.
One of the most powerful things about the bioengineering department is that it nurtures a special kind of professional: a “bridge” who can connect seemingly distant worlds. We’re the ones who speak the language of physicians, chemists, and engineers, and who love nothing more than turning fresh scientific insights into life-changing technologies. Whether it’s guiding a new diagnostic device from a prototype to a clinical trial or helping an AI-driven platform translate raw data into actionable patient care, bioengineers thrive on building relationships across disciplines. That bridging capacity is, in my experience, the department’s signature strength—and it’s often what drives the biggest breakthroughs.
As AI rapidly reshapes the healthcare landscape, bioengineers stand at a pivotal crossroads. We have a chance to ensure these cutting-edge tools remain laser-focused on real patient outcomes. By sitting at the intersection of science and medicine, we can help guide AI research to address genuine clinical needs; improving diagnostics, enhancing personalized medicine, and optimizing treatment plans.
Reflecting on my time in the department, I see how our coursework, training and research projects consistently encouraged us to break out of silos. We learned to marry mechanical engineering with biology, materials science with clinical practice, and computational modeling with patient-based research. The department didn’t just prepare us academically; it cultivated a mindset that sees collaboration as second nature. That mindset has been greatly beneficial to me in a field such as biotech, where bridging communication gaps is vital for steering interdisciplinary teams toward a common goal: more effective and more accessible healthcare technologies.
Now, as the department celebrates 20 years, there’s a wonderful opportunity to appreciate how its interdisciplinary ethos has planted roots across industries, clinics, and labs worldwide. Graduates are leading transformative projects- developing targeted drug delivery systems, designing advanced imaging techniques, and guiding AI solutions from code to clinic. They bring an ability to speak multiple “languages,” from the intricacies of gene editing to the nuts and bolts of machine learning.
Looking ahead, the challenges facing healthcare, whether it’s navigating emerging pathogens or addressing an aging population will demand even closer collaboration among diverse experts. More than ever, we need people who can connect the dots, blending medicine, policy, data, and engineering. My hope is that future bioengineers will continue to carry this legacy forward, building stronger bridges and forging new ones where none existed before.
The past two decades of bioengineering at Illinois have shown what’s possible when you empower students to train beyond individual disciplines. Here’s to the next chapter- may it bring even bolder collaborations, more disruptive innovations, and, above all, better lives for patients who benefit from the science we set in motion.
Congratulations to the Bioengineering Department at Illinois Grainger Engineering on two decades of extraordinary work. I’m humbled and proud to be part of this story and can’t wait to see what we’ll accomplish together in the years to come.