Shahzad

biomedical engineer, becoming a physician-scientist

Incoming MD student, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (FlexMed, starting 2027)
B.S.E. Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan
Currently: MedTech consulting, ZS Associates

I finished a B.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan in three years, mostly learning that the best fixes for medical problems tend to come from people willing to sit in both rooms — the lab and the clinic — instead of picking one. I'm now in a gap year before starting at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in summer 2027, through the FlexMed early-assurance program, spending it in MedTech consulting, keeping a few side projects alive, and figuring out what kind of physician I actually want to be. Short version of the plan: become a surgeon — probably in neurosurgery — who also builds the tools the field needs, instead of only using the ones handed down.

Selected work

newest first
DEVICE
Medical device

GlauCO

A palm-press eye drop applicator for glaucoma patients with limited hand dexterity. Led a six-person team through BME 450 and a full NIH DEBUT Challenge submission — prior-art search, FDA 510(k) pathway research, working prototype, the whole packet. Faculty sponsor: Dr. Wrobel.

ZS
Consulting

MedTech consulting, ZS Associates

Working out of the Chicago office on MedTech and pharma-adjacent client work, including a strategy deck on fragmented ServiceNow adoption across maintenance operations for a hyperscale data center client.

NHLBI
Computational

NHLBI — computational modeling

MATLAB-based computational modeling work that contributed to two publications in AJP-Renal Physiology.

RNA
Machine learning

Shea Lab — RNA-sequencing analysis

Machine learning applied to RNA-sequencing data.

M-HEAL
Global health

M-HEAL

Microcontroller and sensor prototyping for low-resource health settings.

CLINIC
Patient care

Medical assistant

Direct, patient-facing clinical experience — the ground truth for everything above.

Outside of work

right now
Learning

Western (Lehndi) Punjabi — the Gujrat/Gujranwala dialect.

Building

Shookeen — a hookah and chai cafe I'm planning to open next year.

Cooking

Mostly Pakistani and South Asian food. Cookout centerpiece: masala yogurt-marinated chicken drumsticks.

Watching

Cerebral thrillers and heist films — anything with a Nolan-shaped puzzle box.

Making

Bhangra content, and generally staying close to Punjabi music, poetry, and folklore.

Reading