Mechanical engineering technology undergraduate Sarai Juarez Uribe took first place with her three-minute lightning talk at the inaugural Rice BioWear Workshop at Rice University in Houston, Texas last month. The workshop, hosted by the Houston Methodist & Rice University Digital Health Institute (HM-RDHI), brought together clinicians and engineers working on home-based wearable care devices for patients with currently unmet needs. Juarez Uribe was the only undergraduate selected to attend and present.
“What I didn’t know until the evening before was that I was going to be competing against Ph.D. students who have spent years developing their research work, so I didn’t feel quite qualified, and I thought about not going. But I went anyway, presented my research to an audience of more than 100 attendees, and when the results were announced, I won first place in the lightning talk competition,” she said.
“That moment redefined what I thought was possible. It is also what pushed me to continue filling out my graduate school applications. A doctoral degree was never something that I thought was attainable for first-generation students like me, but now that I am looking forward to pursuing a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering at UH this fall, it all feels like a dream come true.”
Juarez Uribe is supervised by professor Francisco C. Robles Hernandez, and she is also a research assistant in the lab of Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor and NSF IUCRC BRAIN Center Director Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal, Fellow IEEE, Fellow AIMBE. She is part of the team working on the development of a soft, textile-based exoskeleton — the MyoStep — to support mobility in children with cerebral palsy.
“Cerebral palsy affects many children worldwide — it’s the most common childhood motor disability — and this soft exoskeleton is considered the next generation of assistive devices for children with mobility impairments,” she said. “The system is composed of lightweight, textile-based actuators made from shape memory alloy wire that actively assist ankle motion during gait. Our goal is to create an assistive device that is comfortable enough to be used as an everyday garment.”
“What I like most about our work is that we’re not just creating a mechanical system. We’re developing a meaningful solution that aims to improve the quality of life for children with cerebral palsy,” added Juarez Uribe. “My research work conducted under Dr. Robles’ and Dr. Contreras’ mentorship, and alongside the interdisciplinary team working on MyoStep, including my classmates Alexis J Oliva Martinez and Asael Andrade, led to the submission of a patent.”
“I’m grateful for the research opportunities available to undergraduate students at the University of Houston, and this award reflects the impact they’ve had on my academic journey. Although I walked into that auditorium as the only undergraduate student in the room, I walked out with the reassurance that hard work and sacrifices pay off.”
Juarez Uribe expects to graduate this spring. Pushing her to persevere through the late nights, early mornings and the challenges of being a first-generation student always stood one person: her brother. She describes him as her “very first teacher.”
“He would stay up past midnight at the kitchen table tutoring me when I was young, helping me through difficult subjects. He instilled in me a passion for learning,” she added. In her first year of university, he passed away from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at 23 years old.
Today, Juarez Uribe is that same age — a milestone that keeps his memory close.
“He won’t get to see me graduate, but I will continue to defy the odds and carry on his legacy”, she said.