BioE GSC: Bioengineering Graduate Student Council
The Bioengineering Graduate Student Council (BioE GSC) seeks to provide bioengineering graduate students with an enriched academic environment and sense of community amongst fellow students. The primary focus of the BioE GSC is to provide social, scholastic, and administrative outlets to support students’ academic and career advancement.
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Technical Skills Series
Established in 2025 by the Bioengineering Graduate Student Council, the Technical Skills Series (TSS) is a set of hands-on, skill-based workshops designed to help bridge the gap between traditional coursework and the practical skills needed for research in bioengineering. The series was developed in response to student feedback highlighting a need for more experiential training in technical areas that are often learned informally or on a per-lab basis, often times limiting the population of students that get opportunities to learn such skills.
The program is primarily geared toward BioE graduate students (MS & PhD) and focuses on building proficiency in widely used research tools and methods. Each session is taught by graduate ‘instructors’ (PhD & Postdoc) with relevant expertise and reviewed by faculty advisors to ensure the material is accurate, rigorous, and applicable to ongoing research. Workshops emphasize active learning, giving students entries into experiential learning, to work directly with real datasets, software, and workflows.
The goal of TSS is to provide students with accessible entry points into new technical areas, strengthen their ability to contribute to research projects, and support their future preparation for both academic and industry careers.
Instructors
| TSS Skill: Bioimaging and Data Analysis (Skill #1; March 19th) |
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 Abdulrahman Kobayter; PhD Student, Department of Bioengineering
Abdulrahman is a Bioengineering PhD student developing the next generation of active ultrasound contrast agents under Prof. Tao Sun. He graduated from Boston University with a degree in Biomedical Engineering and Machine Learning, then worked in academia under Prof. Hadi Nia developing custom ML algorithms for biological image analysis. At IDEXX, he served as a Software Engineer, developing and tuning ML image analysis algorithms for industry-leading diagnostic analyzers. As a former EMT, he continues to pursue his passion for emergency medical services. |
| TSS Skill: Python for Data Analysis and Automation (Skill #2; March 27th) AND Applied Machine Learning (Skill #3; April 10th) |
 Abdullah Al Bashit; Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Bioengineering
Abdullah Al Bashit is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Bioengineering at Northeastern University, working with Prof. Lee Makowski. He earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University and an MS in Engineering from Texas State University. His work sits at the intersection of signal processing, machine learning, and biomedical discovery—developing mathematical solutions to decode complex biological and clinical data. Current research efforts focus on understanding Alzheimer’s disease progression through immunohistochemistry and X-ray scattering, alongside collaborations with the COPDGene community on biomarkers and risk prediction. He enjoys exploring frontier technologies and modern computational tools and applying them to challenging research problems. |
| TSS Skill: SolidWorks for Biomedical Design (Skill #4; 5/6 & 5/20) |
 Phoebe Szarek; Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Bioengineering
Phoebe Szarek is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Bioengineering in the lab of Dr. Jeffrey Ruberti. Her work centers on the mechanics of soft collagenous tissues and mechanisms of in vivo structural maintenance and remodeling under dynamic, physiological loading. She completed her doctoral studies in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Connecticut with work in characterizing and modeling type II collagen mechanics in cartilage. In her academic roles, Phoebe is passionate about designing research and educational experiences that foster one’s confidence, competence, and identity as a scientist and engineer. |
| TSS Skill: CAD for Biomedical Design: Blender (Skill #4; 5/7) AND 3D Computational modeling & simulation: Blender (Skill #5, Dates TBD) |
 Ashlyn McCann; PhD Candidate, Department of Bioengineering
Ashlyn is a PhD Candidate in Bioengineering in Dr. Fang’s Computational and Translational Imaging (COTI) lab focusing on improving fNIRS optical brain imaging tools and 3D reconstructions. She completed her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and was involved in research at Clarkson University regarding signal processing to identify vocal fold displacement. Ashlyn is also passionate about teaching future generations of STEM students, at the high school, collegiate and graduate levels and is currently pursuing a Postsecondary Teaching Graduate Certificate through Northeastern. |
Student Organization Advisors
Nanopore technology, single-cell techniques, computational biology