Photo credit: Jose Colucci Jr.
Fantastic would not be an inaccurate word to describe Robertson Scholar alumna Lina Colucci. Fantasy is what led the Harvard-MIT Ph.D. candidate to engineering.
"When I was younger I loved imagining that I had traveled back in time to a particular era," says Colucci. "I had to take inventory of what had been developed by that time and how I would proceed to invent the remainder. My goal was to be able to build everything we have today to the same extent or better."
Better. A better ballet pointe shoe after two centuries of the same design. With designers from IDEO and Nike, Colucci helped develop the DANZA shoe. A ballerina for the Harvard Ballet Company, Duke University Dance Program, the American Academy of Ballet and others, Colucci blended her love of dance with her engineering skills to improve the safety, comfort, and ergonomics of the pointe shoe.
Colucci is currently working on the way we measure hydration of the human body. She's developing a portable device that will measure a person's hydration levels. The non-invasive technology, part of her MIT Doctoral research, may one day improve health outcomes and save lives.
"I just wanted to build cool stuff," says Colucci, who is also a classical and jazz clarinetist. "Studying Mechanical Engineering at Duke was a natural choice. However, throughout most of college I had no definition of 'cool stuff.' My Robertson friends and I spent a lot of time discussing what we wanted to do with our lives and I was struggling with how to merge 'cool' and 'beneficial to humanity.' My passions for building elegant technical solutions and for improving peoples' lives felt disconnected."
A series of experiences helped Colucci realize biomedical engineering was an area where she could combine both passions.
"During my study abroad semester in Sweden, I decided, on a whim, to attend the first day of a course called 'Biomechanics of Human Movement.' By the end of that first day it struck me that it was beautiful to apply engineering principles to the human body. I took several other courses at the intersection of engineering and biology, and by the time senior year at Duke rolled around I realized that I wanted to develop engineering solutions for healthcare. I had found a field where my passions aligned."
The joint PhD in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology (HST) Program aids in Colucci’s interdisciplinary approach to advancing healthcare and healthcare delivery. Much in the same way she embraced the Robertson program’s blend of Duke campus with UNC campus, Colucci is once again enjoying a dual-school life.
"It is elating to go from Control Systems class at MIT to Pathology class at Harvard Medical School, to go from the machine shop to observing an autopsy, or from a workshop at the Media Lab to shadowing a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital. As someone who wants to build technical solutions for healthcare, it is invaluable to have a life in these two worlds."
In between classes and labs, Colucci finds time to organize hackathons for the student group, MIT Hacking Medicine. For current Duke students considering a science PhD path, Colucci offers some advice.
"Make sure you have a strong conviction of what you want to do after graduation. This doesn't mean that the goal can't change along the way, but graduate school is a marathon that I think makes the most sense when you're running toward a target. Second, if your program allows you to do so, rotate in different labs before picking one. Even if you think you’ve found the lab of your dreams right off the bat, still rotate. If your initial pick is right, rotations will only reinforce the fact."
Colucci plans to continue her dance, music, engineering innovations, and health entrepreneurship.
"I know that I want to be an entrepreneur and inventor in the medical space. I would like to be involved in a startup -- preferably my own -- in the digital health domain. Steve Jobs recognized toward the end of his life that 'a healthcare revolution is beginning just like the computer one when [he] was [young].' I want to make a dent in the healthcare revolution."