Jodi Prosise, PhD, Chair of Engineering and Natural Sciences, was chosen from more than 60 applicants to speak at the TEDxDavenport event March 7.
Prosise submitted her application in the spirit of the show's theme, "Limitless." She will speak for about five minutes on medical assistive devices for the underprivileged. Other local and national speakers will give their own talks ranging from entrepreneurship to financial literacy.
Since graduate school, Prosise has had an eye for helping people achieve. The most obvious is what she will talk about at the TEDx Conference: assistive technologies and custom-made prosthetics for the underprivileged.
But she's also been a huge supporter – especially in the immediate Quad Cities area where she can impact the most people – of introducing young women and girls to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Leading girls into these professions is an ongoing initiative for the entire country, but Prosise has a certain knack for this sort of thing. Her PhD in biomedical engineering definitely helps, but so does her natural creativity (she's a whiz on a sewing machine and anything crafty) and the sheer desire to help people less fortunate.
TEDxDavenport
March 7, Noon-5 p.m., Figge Art Museum, Davenport. Open to the public. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group.
In 2014, she launched Introduce a Girl to Engineering, a hands-on event just for girls held at St. Ambrose. Along with her Engineering students, as well as members of the Engineering and Physics Department, Prosise helped girls and their adult guests try some engineering and physics-related activities. It was a modest beginning with 250 girls attending. The event now boasts twice as many area girls and two sessions to accommodate them all.
"The fact is, women and minorities are motivated by different things," Prosise said. "It's important for us to appeal to these different motivations. At St. Ambrose, our engineering programs focus on the human side of industrial and mechanical engineering. We show all students how they can use their skills in mathematics and science to make a difference in the world."
Appeal she does. Prosise also has a partnership with the Occupational Therapy Department at St. Ambrose which started in 2011, and every other year takes Engineering students to an impoverished area of northeast Brazil to help create prosthetic devices. Engineering students take a course to prepare them – Program for Assistive Technologies for the Underprivileged (PATU) – and work together to solve problems for Brazilian clients. To add to the interdisciplinary mix, students in the Management Department studying social entrepreneurship will accompany the group this year.
By the end of each trip, students have deepened their education and learned about needs greater than their own. And Prosise gets to share her love of engineering and helping others.
"The fact is, women and minorities are motivated by different things," Prosise said. "It's important for us to appeal to these different motivations. At St. Ambrose, our engineering programs focus on the human side of industrial and mechanical engineering. We show all students how they can use their skills in mathematics and science to make a difference in the world."
Dr. Jodi Prosise
TEDx events are local offshoots of the national TED Talks series. Read more about the non-profit group.
Share This Story
