Our Team
Alexandra Slepchenkova
Braid & Handle Engineer
My name is Alexandra Slepchenkova, and I am a graduating senior in Biomedical Engineering with a focus on cardiovascular health and device innovation. I’ve developed a strong foundation through years of research in vascular biomechanics and mechanobiology, as well as hands-on experience in SolidWorks, MATLAB, and wet lab techniques. For this project, I contributed to the CAD design of our sheath handle, testing of prototypes, and communicating results through technical writing and presentations. This experience with Edwards Lifesciences directly aligns with the next step in my career: pursuing a PhD in Bioengineering at Northeastern University. There, I will focus on lung and cardiovascular mechanics and translational research. This project has reinforced my passion for engineering solutions that improve patient outcomes, and I’m excited to continue that work at the graduate level!
Athena Weber
Team Lead, Stent Engineer, & Website Designer
Athena is a graduating senior at UCI with a BS in biomedical engineering. Enthused by all areas of science, she is particularly interested in genetics and longevity. Growing up with an engineer for a father prepared her for a life enriched by technical work and exciting fields. In order to fulfill her ambitions, she looks forward to continuing her education in graduate school. Hailing from the Silicon Valley, Athenas's background includes undergraduate research with Dr. Elliot Botvinick's BEAMS lab. She's a fan of black coffee, complicated problems, and dogs. Top professional skills include MATLAB, mathematics, Solidworks, Creo Parametric, and wetlab techniques, particularly those associated with genetics.
Daniella Cabral
Braid & Handle Engineer
Hello I'm Daniella Cabral, a graduating senior at UCI with a B.S. in biomedical engineering. I come from a variety of backgrounds in experience and interests. I greatly enjoy playing any sports, although my favorite is basketball and soccer. I have a background in professional music performance as I grew up playing mariachi on stages. I have been very blessed with eight siblings and come from a hardworking and dedicated family. At a young age I began working for my father's construction company both in the field and in the office. Aside from a great confidence in my abilities to apply myself to a great range of work, the greatest application this construction experience has given me as an engineer is a problem solving mentality. Anyone who has built something knows throughout the process, problems always arise. One couldn't even imagine how this is the case even more so in building ahouse that requires so many trade applications. As a a witness to this, I've learned a great deal in not allowing any difficulty stop me short from my goals, especially when building a product. This has been greatly developed throughout my courses and labs at UCI and even more so through the completion of this project at Edwards Lifesciences. Being a part of the R&D process of this device has been an incredible joy as I was able to apply my talents, skills gained from the BME courses, and fieldwork experience.
Fahimeh Attar
Stent Engineer, Testing Specialist
Fahimeh is passionate about using her knowledge to help patients have healthier lives and healthcare providers have access to user-friendly medical devices. This project had a great importance to her since this improvement to the access sheath and handle of the TTVR device, can change the outcome of the procedure for lots of elderly patients that go through the TTVR procedure. Fahimeh was mostly responsible for designing the stent sheaths and testing them. Also, Fahimeh and Daniella worked on designing a new seal stack to have a better and more efficient seal that can be stacked on the handle. When not working on her biomed projects, Fahimeh is an instructional assistant at Santiago Canyon College and spends her time solving math problems and helping students. She also enjoys reading in her down time, and listening to music is her favorite activity while working on her projects. Hiking is her way of connecting to nature and enjoying life when it gets stressful.
Katherine Sikorski
Braid & Handle Engineer, Testing Specialist
My name is Katherine Sikorski and I am a graduating senior Biomedical engineering major. I have multiple years of research experience in an optical biomedical engineering laboratory. I have experience in Matlab, Solidworks, and Creo, as well as hand-on dry and wet lab research. My studies and experiences have taught me how to plan and conduct an experiment, analyze the resulting data, and present my results to diverse audiences. I have applied the skills learned in this lab to this project, primarily in the CAD of the handle design, testing of the sheath and handle, and the writing and presentation of our work. I really enjoyed the design process of this project, and I feel it really strengthened my abilities in Solidworks. I enjoy brainstorming new ideas in groups, and making those ideas a reality. I really hope to work on a project similar to this in the future as I continue my career in biomedical engineering and research. I will be pursuing a graduate degree from University of California, San Diego.