Stephan Bannikov
Biomedical Engineering, University of California Irvine
Stephan Bannikov is from Mountain View, California, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering: Premedical as Summa Cum Laude from the University of California Irvine in three years. During his next year, he worked full-time as an EMT and completed training in critical care transport, supporting nurses in pediatric intensive care transfers for Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
At the Beckman Laser Institute, he focused on fluorescent microscopy with cellular signaling and brain injury. Inspired by this experience, he developed a low-cost imaging system by creating a novel image processing algorithm. He presented at multiple conferences, was published for it, and received the Phillip S. Hiestand Engineering Research Award.
As Community Outreach Chair for Alpha Epsilon Delta, he organized care package drives and led a large-scale community health fair. At the Cariño Student Outreach Clinic, Stephan became the Director of Research after earning “research coordinator of the year” for a project examining and removing barriers to care among unhoused patients.
Stephan was also a multi-time finalist in design competitions and medical lead for Solytics, a startup that was a semifinalist at the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition and was chosen to present at the Beall Butterworth design competition showcase.
Stephan chose to attend EnMed for its integration of engineering and medicine, as well as project-based learning. He was drawn to the chance to continue building and testing ideas in a clinical environment, particularly to the idea of device building within specialty research as is made possible by the Houston Methodist collaboration.
Outside of academics, Stephan finds solace through traveling and outdoor exploration and is working toward a personal goal of visiting every national park. He loves to ski and snorkel while also enjoying learning new board games and sports as a way to stay active and connect with others.
