‘Brainy’ couture: Biomed grad designs high-tech fashion

Leah Thomas became a fashion designer to cap off her undergraduate degree in Virginia Tech’s biomedical engineering program.

A member of the university’s first cohort of 40 undergraduate biomedical engineering students who graduated in spring 2022, Thomas designed a dress and headpiece fitted with biosensors for a biotech couture fashion show.

She collaborated with another biomedical engineering student and two industrial engineering students to create fashions that displayed the model’s biosignals to the audience. Her water-inspired dress and headpiece moved rhythmically with the model’s brain waves by incorporating EEG sensors.

“That was a big passion project,” the Williamsburg native says. “As much as I love the technical side, I’m also creative and this combined high fashion with biomedical sensors.”

She initially planned to major in mechanical engineering, but the opportunity to flex her creative muscles drew Thomas to Virginia Tech’s newly-established biomedical engineering program in 2019. “It combined my love of making things and design with helping others,” she says. With her degree, Thomas is moving to Kalamazoo, Michigan, to join Stryker Instruments as a design engineer.

Integrating biological sciences with engineering design, biomedical engineering aims to enhance health care with engineering solutions for assessing, diagnosing and treating medical conditions.

Virginia Tech has partnered with Wake Forest University for nearly two decades on master’s and Ph.D. programs in biomedical engineering but determined there was strong demand for an undergraduate degree that emphasized foundational mechanics.

“This is an increasingly popular major, not just in the United States but internationally because of its connection to health care,” says Jennifer Wayne, head of the Virginia Tech’s biomedical engineering and mechanics department. “Virginia Tech has such a strong college of engineering. This degree gives us an opportunity to apply engineering principles to improve the delivery of health care since biomedical engineers work hand-in-hand with health care providers to solve problems or to make solutions better.”

Last summer, Thomas interned with Virginia Tech’s Carilion Clinic, where she designed circuitry and coding on a sleeve that can be worn by lymphedema patients to alleviate pain. “It’s a combination of vibration and compression,” she says. “We’re working on getting a full patent.”

The first cohort faced unprecedented challenges during COVID. “The students excelled and were able to perform research in faculty labs, internships and co-ops,” Wayne says.

Meanwhile, the program is growing, with 60 seniors, 80 juniors and 80 sophomores enrolled this fall. ”