During one of her first college tours as a high school junior, Wynter Duncanson witnessed something that would change her life and shift her career aspirations. She saw the possibility of creating something that had the power to dramatically improve a person's quality of life-in this case, a therapeutic device designed by biomedical engineering students at the University of Pennsylvania that helped a mobility-impaired child. The device, she says, gave the child the ability to hug the students who designed it. Duncanson, now a BU College of Engineering assistant dean of outreach and diversity and a lecturer in biomedical engineering, was hooked. In her career as a biomedical engineer, she has worked to improve society and open the door to people of all backgrounds who aspire to work in STEM.
"STEM fields, particularly engineering, must be made accessible to everyone," she says. In honor of her achievements, Duncanson has been named an IAspire Leadership Academy 2019 fellow, a program meant to train rising leaders in STEM higher education who are underrepresented in the field.
