Ralph Erdmann

Hometown: Durham, NC
Year at Baylor: Sophomore
Major: Mechanical Engineering, Pre-med
Minor: Biology, possibly Chemistry
Student Organization: Baylor Aerospace 

Q: How did you decide on Baylor? 

A: Baylor is in a great location, and scholarships attracted me as well. It felt like a very welcoming community from the tour. Baylor has an exceptional engineering and premed program, and our graduate school opportunities are growing each year.

Q: What has been your most impactful ECS class or professor thus far? 

A: Along with being an excellent professor who does an amazing job teaching, Dr. Elon Terrell always balances what we learn in the classroom with the real world. An example is the field trip we took to the Baylor Energy Complex. He has shown me that I have a passion for engineering that complements my passion for medical practice very well.

Q: Talk about your most recent internship. 

A: This summer I had a paid internship at a Duke University medical research lab called the Devi Lab (also known as the Cell Death Laboratory). The lab was in the Surgical Sciences division and the program was Advanced and Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research. The aim of our project was to establish an innovative in vitro model of lymphovascular invasion, which is the presence of tumor cells within a definite endothelial-lined space (lymphatics or blood vessels) in the breast surrounding invasive carcinoma. The presence of LVI is associated with an increased risk of axillary lymph node and distant metastases.

Q: What are your career goals? 

A: I aspire to be a physician, and by using my background in engineering I want to improve the medical field and how surgery is performed by working in medical device production. I also want to use my engineering skills to improve healthcare and to be a surgeon who relies on critical thinking.