Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1138339
6 t m c » p u l s e | j u ly 2 0 1 9 Because students are working on real-world problems, Oden said, they feel more invested in their projects. "Students of this generation really do want to work on real projects, and when they find some- thing they care about personally, they are more motivated to work much harder than they would normally for just a grade," Oden said. Karen Vasquez Ruiz, a bioengineering major at Rice who graduated in May, was one of the first students to work on the LUCIA model the summer after her freshman year. She said that the opportunity to focus on pressing global health issues was exactly the kind of experience she had hoped to gain at the university. "In a lot of classes, we learn so much theoret- ical stuff and never really know how to apply it outside of class. If you take initiative and join Rice 360° or come to the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen, you can get involved with projects that are actually making a difference," Ruiz said. "I really wanted to help with low-resources settings and disadvantaged communities who don't have access to health care, and Rice 360° has really been the way that I have been able to get involved with that and give back to those communities and address global health problems around the world." A global push In the three years since its inception, LUCIA has evolved based on student ideas and feedback from clinical partners. It has been used in train- ings in Africa, Central America and even Texas, including the Rio Grande Valley. Schmeler, who is working with the World Health Organization's ini- tiative to eliminate cervical cancer among other international teaching and training missions with MD Anderson, believes the model could fill a much-needed gap in screening efforts. "There's a global push to eliminate this dis- ease, and so there's going to be a lot of training and education going on over the next decade and this is a great tool for that," Schmeler said. "The models aren't any good without teachers, but it makes that teaching easier, more fun, more con- sistent and more effective." In fact, medical schools in Texas have already expressed interest in using the models as part of their curriculum. "It's not just limited to low-resource settings," Schmeler said. "The models are innovative enough and easy enough … . The reality is, I think we can use them anywhere." This summer, the team is working to create 50 kits to distribute to medical partners around the world—all hand-painted by artists and engi- neers in Malawi. The students hope to get addi- tional feedback about how LUCIA can improve and eventually work with a commercial partner on manufacturing and widespread distribution. "These problems are big, and to solve them we need a diverse group of people and people who think differently," Schmeler said. "This has really been a collaboration between Rice and Malawi Polytechnic and MD Anderson, and I think that whole idea of bringing together a very diverse team—people from different cultural and educa- tional backgrounds but also their training and professions—has been very valuable." The innovative teaching model may seem simple, but it is effective. "We think that sometimes we need to have these elaborate, complicated or highly technical solutions, but really it's about filling a need," Parra said. "I think if we collaborate more, we'll be able to figure out the most important problems and tailor our skills to that."