This summer, thanks to the Dwight Community Grant, I had the opportunity to take my leukemia detection system, ALLocate beyond the labs and into real-life clinical settings across the Bay Area. Over the course of several weeks, I worked directly with physicians, lab technicians, and hospital staff to use the system, gather measurements, redesign hardware components, print new 3D parts, solder motors, integrate circuitry, and test the automated microscope stage on real bone marrow slides.
At Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco, I assembled the system for the first time and was grateful when it worked immediately. This experience allowed me to begin collecting feedback from clinicians to increase the system’s accuracy and usability. Their comments about the stability of the robotic stage and the value of low-cost automation encouraged me to keep iterating.
I then visited Sutter Solano, where I demonstrated the system’s slide-scanning process and learned how ALLocate could help reduce fatigue during routine microscopy. At Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, I received thoughtful suggestions about user interface improvements and the need for automated focusing. These visits reminded me that engineering solutions do not end with code or models. The real impact comes from using the system in real-world setting with professionals and listening to feedback from the experts.
By the end of the summer, I had improved the hardware, refined the software, and deepened my understanding of how to build tools that genuinely help clinicians in underserved communities.
