Megan McCain

I am a first year grad student in bioengineering working in Dr. Parker's Disesase Biophysics Group (http://www.deas.harvard.edu/diseasebiophysics/). I attended Washington University in St. Louis for undergrad, where I double majored in biomedical engineering and biology and minored in chemistry. The only courses I have taken related to solid mechanics are Biomechanics and Transport Phenomena, both of which covered basic mechanics. As an undergrad, I worked in a research lab that focused on cardiac electrophysiology. The lab I am in now is interested in how the mechanical and electrical behaviors of cardiac cells are related, so I need to gain a stronger background in mechanics to match my background in electrophysiology. I hope that this class will help me develop an intuition about the mechanical behavior of objects, which I can apply to the mechanics of cellular events. This class will also help me further develop my problem solving skills, which is useful for my education in general. My weaknesses for this class include a weak background in mechanical engineering and my strengths are in general problem solving.