Kavya Katugam-Dechene

After completing her BS in Biomedical Engineering from The University of Connecticut, Kavya received her MS and PhD in Kinesiology from the Pennsylvania State University with specific focus on musculoskeletal biomechanics. Motivated by her interest in industry research and development, she completed an internship at a sport-technology start-up during her graduate studies. As a data science intern, her major contribution was the implementation of a custom data filtering pipeline in Python to process real-time spatial data, which improved overall computation accuracy by over 50%. As a postdoc in the Applied Biomechanics Laboratory in the UNC/NC State Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, she leads an industry-sponsored research collaboration to quantify the relation between footwear design and locomotor health in older adults and orthopaedic consumers. In this role, she independently runs human-subjects research projects and prepares scientific findings for quarterly industry reports and academic conferences. She is interested in advancing understanding of the fundamental mechanics of movement to improve health outcomes, specifically in at-risk and marginalized populations. As a Venture Catalyst Fellow, she is excited to gain fundamental business skills and hands-on experience with market research and product development to facilitate her transition to industry as a research and development engineer.