Hello, internet denizen! My name is Lambert Zhang, and I am an engineering science major at the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering, but today I write to you in the capacity of a SHURE-Grid Fellowship fellow. SHURE-Grid stands for Summer Honors Undergraduate Research Experience: Electric Grid Securing and Storytelling – a big mouthful – the David C. Frederick Honors College’s emerging, interdisciplinary program aiming to foster public understanding of cyber-informed engineering, or CIE. (The “electric grid” portion of the program remains in a subdued capacity, one of several options.)
Our fellowship revolves around two projects, two frame stories of similar intent but different coloring. This blog post coincides with the wrapping and packing of my four-individual group’s first project, a lesson plan about the application of CIE principles to the healthcare industry. Throughout this project, we have been guided by Doctors Mai Abdelhakim, Robert Cunningham, and Brandon Grainger from the Swanson School of Engineering, Doctor James Joshi from the School of Computing and Information, Doctor Ravi Madhavan from the Business School, Professor Kevin Smith from the Broadcast Department, and Director Brett Say from the Frederick Honors College. We have also received aid from graduate teaching assistants Mohammad Ensaf and Peilin He.
The first lesson plan’s inspiration was the recent cyber-attack on the Ascension Healthcare System. While we initially hoped to structure our lesson around the derelict state of internet-of-things devices in hospitals and mitigating patient harm associated with overriding in-hospital equipment such as electrocardiograms and ventilators, after an interview with Aria CV’s Vice President of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs, Dr. Joshua Woolley, we realized medical devices tend to lack remote access capabilities as a prophylactic measure against the deathly terror of hacking and decided to concentrate on the rare counter-example: insulin infusion systems/pumps.
My primary responsibility in our four-individual group was to provide technical input and code a simulation where students could discover the powerful ability of cyber-informed engineering solutions to mitigate the deathly terror of hacking. Because this simulation is limited to the tools available to modern undergraduate engineering students, I selected to model a continuous blood glucose monitor plus insulin infusion pump system in the python programming language, specifically a Jupyter Notebook hosted on Google Colab. As an engineering student, I lacked previous exposure to python and self-taught from Allen Downey’s concise “Think Python, 3rd Edition” textbook (available for free at allendowney.github.io/ThinkPython/index.html). Unfortunately, this information requisition process has delayed the delivery of my full simulation product.
If you’ve been willing to read through my project progress, or even if you skipped the bulk of my blog post, you’re rewarded the opportunity to learn more about yours truly! As forecast in my opening paragraph, I am a rising senior in the Swanson School of Engineering. Nevertheless, as an engineering science major with a concentration in engineering physics, I’ve had my interests divided between the build-something engineering mentality and the research approach from the pure sciences, especially physics. Like my interests, my professional goals are split between pursuing a role in engineering such as semiconductor design and pursuing a graduate physics degree. I am especially drawn to biophysics doctorate programs where I could continue my physics education while applying it to something relatively macroscopic and tangible – biology. The SHURE-Grid fellowship exposes me to both profession engineering and research, enabling me to taste test both of my (preferred) foreseeable career pathways.