Nyna DeWitt

Nyna DeWitt is from Charlotte, NC and has a passion for service in engineering, focusing on serving her community and giving back to others.  Nyna is a member of the Design of a Prosthetic Heart Valve for Pediatric Patients capstone senior design team.  During her senior year in Wake Forest Engineering, Nyna has worked with her team under the guidance of Dr. Olga Pierrakos and Mr. Brandon Eberl (Wake Forest Engineering) to design an optimized expanded polytetrafluoroethylene heart valve for younger patients that will adapt to patient growth over time.  In addition to her senior design work, Nyna has participated in undergraduate research at the Wake Forest School of Medicine under Dr. Ashely Weaver, using computational models to research the effects of car accidents on the human body.  She has used her time outside of her coursework to obtain an internship at COOK Medical Group, contributing to design control documentation and developing verification protocols to evaluate design changes. 

Nyna has been an active member of the Wake Forest community, co-founding the SisterCircle organization at WFU and acting as President of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.  She has volunteered her time with the Minority Association for Pre-Health Students, Deacon Doulas, and the Wake Forest Summer Immersion Program as a Program Ambassador.  Nyna’s favorite memory in Wake Forest Engineering was working on the spine project in Introduction to Engineering Measurement and Analysis because it gave her the opportunity to collect data, interact with physicians, and use real medical equipment. 

Nyna will be pursuing a master’s degree in biomedical engineering at John Hopkins after completing her graduation.