Perspectives on Biomedical Engineering Education

This book presents state-of-the-art pedagogical approaches to biomedical engineering education within a global context. The book also provides practical guides on adapting pedagogies and designing learning activities in the biomedical engineering classroom that suit undergraduate and postgraduate programs.Perspectives on Biomedical Engineering Education is the first book of its kind to focus on applications of pedagogical approaches for dissecting and examining complex concepts in Biomedical Engineering in today’s modern classrooms in higher education. The book first introduces the historical background and development of biomedical engineering. Its second section focuses on leading scholars’ knowledge and experience in applying various pedagogies, including biodesign, design thinking, capstones, and prototyping. The final section distills expert insights into practical pedagogical guidelines on biomedical engineering education for university teaching and academic staff and readers alike who are interested in biomedical engineering education.The book is primarily written for a wide audience from junior to senior biomedical engineering academic staff, who will find new ideas to adapt the relevant pedagogy into their classroom. Industry professionals and any readers interested in biomedical engineering or related fields would also find the material relevant.

About the Author

Socrates Dokos is part-time Associate Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering UNSW, where his research has focused on the development of computational models for various biomedical engineering applications, including neurostimulators, visual prostheses, transcranial electric stimulators, cardiac defibrillators, left ventricular assist devices and artificial mitral valves. He has collaborated with several medical device companies using computational modelling to better understand and improve their device performance and has sole-authored the teaching text: “Modelling Organs, Tissues, Cells and Devices Using Matlab and COMSOL Multiphysics (Springer, 2017), which has achieved over 60K individual chapter dwnlds worldwide. He is an education-focussed academic, having served as Learning and Teaching Director of Biomedical Engineering at UNSW for several years until 2021.

Chun Chuen Billy Chan is an academic at UNSW School of Education. He earned his PhD in Education (Learning Sciences) from The University of Sydney and has over 15 years of experience teaching TESOL and EAP at both international and local universities. Drawing on learning sciences, he focuses on curriculum and pedagogy design, bringing innovative perspectives to inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary education and research programs. His primary research interests include curriculum and pedagogy development and design, AI pedagogy, equity and inclusive education, multimodal literacy, critical thinking, and learning sciences. Through this work, he aims to deepen our understanding of evolving educational contexts and to foster transformative learning experiences for diverse student populations .

Lauren Kark is Deputy Head of School (Academic) at the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, University of New South Wales. She is an education-focused academic with teaching expertise in biomechanics and assistive technology. Her work integrates technical learning with social impact, informed by her leadership of service-learning programs in both domestic and international contexts. Lauren recently led the development of a new four-year undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering at UNSW. This work reflects her broader academic interests in curriculum design, disciplinarity, and the role of interdisciplinary thinking in engineering education.