Dream Team Engineering

Dream Team Engineering is a student organization at UF that works closely with Shands hospital at UF. We have teams that build engineering solutions for problems that hospital faculty have. From creating 3D models to help teach the young children receiving operations to better understand their procedure to making apps for patients to use.

I joined the DTE in the fall of 2024, first on a team called Design Suture Pads, which was a team designing synthetic skin to be used as a teaching tool for medical students. However, a team that truly piqued my interest was called Deep Brain Stimulation, lead by Hannah Kennedy in collaboration with the Norman Fixel Institute. I applied to switch to this team and joined them in the spring of 2025.

Deep Brain Stimulation

Deep Brain Stimulation(DBS) is a procedure for treating symptoms of Parkinson’s, by using leads in specific places of the brain, tremors can be reduced to a significant degree. However, this is a brain surgery procedure, and lead placement is very precise, planning where to place the leads requires multiple brain imaging modalities, specifically, CT and MRI scans.

The problem is that some patients can not get MRIs for a number of reasons, such as metal implants, claustrophobia, and cost. With CT scans being considerably more available. MRIs however are imperative for DBS planning due to the high fidelity and detail it provides. Therefore, the DBS team seeks to generate MRI scans from CT images for aiding in DBS planning. I will delve more into the technical foundation of this in later posts