Parth Parikh

Mechanical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison    

Parth Parikh grew up in Elmhurst, Illinois, and earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He spent the next year as a Cardiovascular Medical Assistant at Midwest Cardiovascular Institute, assisting with patient triage, diagnostics, and procedures, while also serving as a Spanish/Gujarati interpreter for patients.

He spent two years researching the genetic basis of coronary artery disease using stem cell models in the Lo Sardo lab at the Wisconsin Institute for Medical Research, where he developed a protocol for calcifying vascular smooth muscle cells. He presented at multiple conferences, winning first place in an undergraduate poster competition and co-authoring the lab’s first publication in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.

Combining engineering with product design, Parth led a senior design team that built “”SmartSpa,”” a portable chemical-sensing and dispensing system that won Best Prototype at UW-Madison’s Senior Design Showcase and is now provisional-patent-pending.

Parth chose the EnMed program for its integration of engineering and medicine within the Texas Medical Center and hopes to build data-driven tools that improve patient health awareness and accessibility.

Outside academics, Parth enjoys traveling, trying new restaurants, playing tennis, cooking, and was once a semi-professional Valorant player.