Leela Goel named Outstanding Senior by ECU Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi

Leela Goel

The ECU Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi recognized Leela Goel, an EC Scholar and member of the ECU Honors College, as the Outstanding Senior for 2015-2016. She received a plaque and a check for $1000 from the chapter at the annual initiation ceremony on April 17, 2016. Leela graduates in spring 2016 with a degree in biomedical engineering in the College of Technology and Engineering. Leela held several internships to help her define her research interests and goals. She joined ECU’s Biomechanical Laboratory under the direction of Dr. DeVita and presented work comparing the differences between males and females during load carriage. She also received a prestigious ECU Undergraduate Research Award to fund her senior honor’s thesis, titled, “Developing a Musculoskeletal Model of Landing,” which involves combining biomechanical theory and the programming skills she developed in the lab. The goal is to use this model to help understand the mechanism behind landing biomechanics and injuries like ACL tears. Leela was also selected for the East Carolina Heart Institute summer internship where she worked with Dr. Chitwood and the da Vinci Robotic surgical system engineer. In the summer of 2015 she participated in a National Science Foundation research experience on biomedical engineering in simulations with Dr. Meardon and she presented her research at the 2015 national Biomedical Engineering Society. Leela also studied abroad in India with Dr. Maher’s program in religious studies. She has been active on campus serving as President of the Biomedical Engineering Society Student Chapter. She has been part of the ECU Honors College Ambassadors Recruitment Committee, the Pirate Tutoring Center as a chemistry and engineering tutor, and GoScience as a volunteer coordinator for STEM education events. She organized the first-ever NC Biomedical Engineering Symposium for chapters a group of universities in North Carolina. Upon graduation, Leela plans to pursue the PhD in Biomedical Engineering with a focus in medical imaging at North Carolina State University and dreams one day of running her own research institute where physicians, engineers and scientists work together to address clinically relevant problems.