Hi! I’m Sailahari Ponnaluri and I am a third year PhD student in the Department of Bioengineering in the Artificial Heart Lab with Dr. Keefe Manning. I study the fluid mechanics of accelerated wear testers and transcatheter/bioprosthetic heart valves. Outside of lab, I am the President of the graduate section of the Biomedical Engineering Society and the Assembly Speaker of the Graduate and Professional Student Association. Choosing to study Biomedical Engineering was one of the best decisions I have ever made. BME allowed me the opportunity to apply math, science and engineering, which were all subjects I enjoyed, to medicine. I love that BME lets me work with researchers, clinicians, and industry to help patients with cutting edge technology. It is an incredibly rewarding experience to see the potential your research can have on real patients.