Socializing with Scientists

Soumya Acharya conjures up clever new medical gadgets (he is a biomedical engineer)

Season 1 Episode 5

Soumya has always been a tinkerer and inventor. He cobbled together a homemade radio as a 5th grader in northern India, and soon after that he started an electronics club in his dad's garage. He later graduated from medical school, but couldn’t shake a love of technology, and so he decided to go to graduate school for engineering in the US. He now combines both loves as a biomedical engineer, inventing better medical devices for not only patients in the US, but also those in countries without regular access to the latest medical technology, or even consistent electricity and the internet. 

Soumya Acharya, MD, PhD, is the graduate program director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design. He has led teams to create such innovations as VectorCam, a device that works on cheap smartphones to easily identify mosquitos and better squash malaria, as well as inexpensive, simple neonatal monitoring devices that can detect severe health problems in newborns in countries where regular medical care is difficult to find.


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