Highly ranked BME graduate program draws best and brightest in pursuit of solutions to improve people’s lives

Elizabeth Su jump-started her pursuit of a PhD as a Boilermaker when her mentor and advisor was picked as the new head of Purdue University’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering. Looking to chase her dream as a neurotechnology researcher, Su followed professor Kevin Otto from the University of Florida when he was selected to return to West Lafayette and lead one of the nation’s strongest biomedical engineering programs.

“At Purdue, I’ve found another home,” says Su, a Los Angeles native who earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and neuroscience at Syracuse University as the first member in her family to attend college. “My lab feels like a second family; my department provides consistent support for my research and professional growth; and the wider university community has been both kind and welcoming.”

Helping seal the deal: the fact that Purdue’s BME graduate program ranks No. 5 for universities without a medical school, No. 5 in the Big Ten, No. 8 among the nation’s public universities and 24th on the list of 155 U.S. colleges, according to the U.S. News & World Report’s 2025 rankings.

For undergraduates, Purdue’s BME program also was at No. 5 for colleges without a medical school and No. 23 overall in U.S. News & World’s Report ranking of undergraduate programs released in September.

“Since our founding in 1974, Boilermaker biomedical engineers have advanced technologies that have touched more than 100 million patients worldwide,” Otto says. “Purdue BME students like Elizabeth are poised to drive that number even higher, helping us make our next giant leap.”

In the U.S. News & World Report’s Best Graduate Schools rankings, two types of data are examined: expert opinion about program excellence and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school’s faculty, research and students, and students’ postgraduate outcomes.

“The research quality at BME is truly outstanding, supported by exceptional collaborators, staff and faculty. I could not have chosen a better place than Purdue to pursue my studies,” says Juan Mesa, a Purdue BME PhD student from Colombia.

Adds Su: “Yes, Purdue’s rigorous BME program was also a deciding factor, as well as the strength of the neural engineering research happening on campus. There are several neural engineering labs in BME, and we all support each other intellectually and academically.”

Best of both worlds for PhD

Fellow BME PhD student Cortland Johns is combining her love for engineering with a passion to provide health care solutions that will improve people’s health and well-being. Building on an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Oklahoma, she says Purdue’s BME program offered the best of both worlds.

“When I started as an undergrad, I knew my skill set was in engineering. I could see that the engineering mentality made a lot of sense to me — the problem-solving techniques, that mind frame fit me really well,” says Johns, a native of the Quad Cities. “But my passion, what I really cared about, was assessing health care problems. Obviously, Purdue is a force in engineering. Also appealing were the strong clinical connections between Purdue and the IU Medical School in Indianapolis.”

Winning the prestigious 2025-26 STEM Chateaubriand Fellowship, Johns will travel to France in the spring to collaborate with a research team led by renowned cardiovascular physiopathologist Pierre Sicard at the Université de Montpellier and the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, known as INSERM. There, Johns will spend seven months advancing her research, using high-resolution ultrasound and complex animal models to mimic pathologies, such as hypertension and aortic stenosis, for examining heart disease.

Johns’ PhD advisor Craig Goergen, professor and associate head for clinical engagement for BME, says Johns exemplifies the type of student Purdue’s BME graduate program draws. And being awarded the Chateaubriand Fellowship will give her an opportunity to engage with cutting-edge cardiovascular research and perspectives that will fundamentally enhance her doctoral work.

“This international collaboration with a top French research group will expose her to different approaches in biomedical engineering while allowing her to contribute her own expertise to important research questions regarding cardiac and vascular pathology,” Goergen says.

What’s driving Su and her research?

Su decided to follow Professor Otto to Purdue in mid-2024 because of the learning environment he fosters for the team in the NeuroProstheses Research Lab. When she worked with the group the summer before applying, she says, “Everyone was warm, welcoming and collaborative.” Su says Professor Otto also has been an encouraging and supportive mentor to her and her studies.

Fueling her passion in this research field, Su has aphantasia, a condition where she is unable to create mental images or visualizations. From a young age, Su says she was fascinated by how sensory experiences differ across people. She would watch her mother reading a map like she was a wizard. Su couldn’t fathom how her mother could translate what she was seeing into a mental image that could be used to navigate an environment.

“When I first discovered brain-computer interfaces could restore lost senses, I was immediately hooked,” Su says. “I explored this field through a summer research program with Dr. Otto, which confirmed my passion for the subject. Now, through my PhD research, I’ve had the privilege of meeting patients who benefit from these devices. Hearing their perspectives on how neurotechnology changes their daily lives continues to inspire and guide my work.”

In addition to the scholarships she received to attend Syracuse before selecting Purdue to advance her PhD studies, Su was among 16 Purdue students who received a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program award this past year. Post PhD, Su hopes to work in R&D for a neurotechnology company.

“We can restore vision, touch and movement to blind, amputated and paralyzed patients respectively, but only in research settings. I’m deeply passionate about making these life-changing devices accessible to everyone who needs them, but the current neurotechnology products are not there yet,” Su says. “I want to be at that forefront — innovating, designing and testing the next generation of brain-computer interfaces that will be readily available to all.”