Biomedical and Chemical Engineering Professor Pun To “Doug” Yung has been named as a 2026 Engineering Unleashed Fellow by the Kern Family Foundation.
The fellowship, awarded through the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network, or KEEN, recognizes engineering faculty across the country who demonstrate leadership in advancing undergraduate engineering education through an entrepreneurial mindset. Yung is among a national cohort of fellows selected this year from institutions across the country.
As part of the fellowship, Yung will receive a $10,000 grant from the Kern Family Foundation to advance his project, which introduces first-year engineering students to entrepreneurial mindset through a game-based assistive technology design challenge.
In the classroom activity, students first experience simulated hand-movement limitations that mimic some of the challenges associated with arthritis. They then test how well they can move different materials using standard utensils versus prototype devices. The exercise can incorporate electromyography to connect user effort with engineering evidence, as well as a vibration platform that adds a second layer of motor-control difficulty.
From there, student teams define a user need, identify design constraints, and redesign or 3D print an adaptive utensil, testing whether their solution creates meaningful value for the user.
“The goal is not simply to build a better utensil,” said Yung. “It is to help first-year students recognize that engineering begins with understanding people and that a successful design must create value in ways users genuinely care about.”
The project frames entrepreneurship as more than business creation. Students practice curiosity by examining what users experience, make connections by linking biomechanics, materials, usability and accessibility. The project also gives students insight into creating value by improving function, comfort, independence or dignity for a specific user group.
Yung serves as program director for the biomedical engineering undergraduate program in the College of Engineering and Computer Science and teaches the Bioengineering Capstone Design course, in which student teams develop solutions to real-world biomedical challenges from concept through prototype.
“Doug has a gift for turning a first-year design exercise into a lesson about empathy, dignity, and what it really means to create value for a user,” said Biomedical and Chemical Engineering Department Chair Shikha Nangia. “This fellowship is a wonderful recognition of that, and of the entrepreneurial mindset he instills in our students from day one.”
Yung was named College Educator of the Year in 2022 by the Technology Alliance of Central New York and has been recognized as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
KEEN is a partnership of dozens of U.S. colleges and universities working to graduate engineers with an entrepreneurial mindset. Fellows’ projects are published through Engineering Unleashed, an online platform and community of engineering faculty and staff, where they become resources for educators at other institutions.
More information on Yung’s fellowship project is available on the Engineering Unleashed website.