Giacomo Pratesi and Davide Piaggio have been awarded a Visiting Professorship at the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) at the University of Warwick. Their research focuses on validating "DINO" by Paperbox Health, a web-based game for early literacy assessment in English primary schools.

The 7th East Africa Regional Healthcare Engineering Conference (EARC) 2024 in Mwanza, Tanzania, brought together scholars and professionals to address critical challenges in biomedical engineering. Representing a collaborative international team, our intern Mr Ernest Bwogi presented research on oxygen concentrator failures in low-resource settings, exploring the impact of dust and humidity. The experience was transformative, offering valuable feedback, inspiring discussions, and fostering meaningful connections. This milestone highlighted the importance of collaboration, persistence, and knowledge-sharing in driving innovation.

Dr. Davide Piaggio from the University of Warwick played a key role in the "IoT and AI for Frugal Innovation 2024" bootcamp, hosted by Università Campus Bio-Medico of Rome. Dr. Piaggio, along with PhD student James Wallace, led sessions on frugal innovation, 3D printing design, and blood pressure estimation using PPG signals. The bootcamp, supported by the Biomedical Engineering Institute and the Society & Culture Spotlight, provided students with hands-on learning in resource-constrained environments, with special recognition for scholarship recipient Dr. Gamal Abdulnaser Yahya Al-Kawsi.

The fourth-year MEng group, supervised by Dr Davide Piaggio, has just been awarded the School of Engineering Group Innovation Award for their project on a device for screening for and monitoring neurodegeneration in the elderly, for which they scored a high first class.

"This project was initially proposed by one of the students, Ben Hoskings, and I decided to embark on the adventure of supervising my first fourth-year project. Since when I met the team, I had no doubt in their skills and I thought that this could really go somewhere. We have now applied for the Eutopia PhD Co-tutelle with VUB, to see whether we can take this forward. Congratulations to all the awardees, it was a pleasure working with you!" Davide Piaggio

Katy Stokes, PhD student in the ABSPIE Lab with Prof Leandro Pecchia has started working on a part-time Parliamentary Internship with the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. Working directly with House of Lords member Baroness Natalie Bennett, Katy has supported publication of two articles exploring the interconnectedness of pandemic preparedness and antimicrobial resistance and the role of deforestation in driving antimicrobial resistance. 

The first article features research outputs from the ABSPIE Lab, in particular from a project led by Dr Davide Piaggio in collaboration with Dr Camilla Audia (Assistant Professor in Global Sustainable Development), and Prof Sharifah Sekalala and Haleema Masud (School of Law). The research: “Pandemic Management and Preparedness – Telemedicine and the Role of Innovative Technologies in Securing a Safer Future” discusses key lessons learned from the literature and 2023 European Parliament Interest Group event.