Mentoring without borders: Alumnus pays it forward

Between applying nonlinear dynamics to brain biomechanics research and leading multiple mentorship efforts for LGBTQ+ students in STEM, MechSE alumnus Mehmet Kurt (PhDME 2014) stays busy.

As someone who identifies within the LGBTQ+ community, he is passionate about raising the visibility of LGBTQ+ students in STEM.

“There is a body of research that demonstrates a significant retention problem among LGBTQ+ students in STEM,” said Kurt, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Washington (UW). “I believe that visibility and mentorship will help mitigate this issue. If a student sees another LGBTQ+ individual in the position they want to have or can easily talk with someone about their own experience, I think that’s what makes the change.”

In 2021, Kurt founded the nationwide network Peer Review for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (PRIDE), connecting LGBTQ+ and underrepresented minority STEM students with volunteer mentors who can review STEM-related applications and answer questions.

“Our primary objective is to foster a sense of community between LGBTQ+ researchers and we hope that organic, long-lasting mentor/mentee relationships will form,” Kurt wrote of the program’s goals.

He is also involved with the international network The STEM Village, for which he helped organize a 2020 virtual conference that welcomed 700 attendees worldwide.

“I’m hoping to do something similar at a local scale in the Seattle area,” he said of efforts to continue raising LGBTQ+ visibility in STEM.

Alongside his robust work to improve inclusion in engineering, Kurt leads a research group at UW focused on understanding the mechanics of the human brain, considered the body’s softest organ.

Composed of tissue that resembles Jell-O^TM in its behavior, it follows that the brain is easily affected by small changes, as well as more obvious traumatic injuries. Any impact to the skull results in movement of the brain, which, at higher impact, can cause damage to its structure.

“By studying the mechanics of the brain, you can understand brain damage and its underlying symptoms,” Kurt said. His research group, Kurtlab, uses high-fidelity finite element models (FEM) that have been validated with prior experiments to simulate motion of the brain inside the skull. “We study the deformation associated with impact to understand predictable symptoms.”

To gather experimental data, Kurt and his colleagues worked with live volunteers using MRI. Volunteers place their head on an inflatable pillow that can be manipulated to gently vibrate or oscillate the skull. The MRI tracks the resulting low-impact shear waves, or deformation waves, occurring inside.

“The types of deformation and movements that occur in the case of an impact are very nonlinear, and that’s where my education from Illinois really helps me bring something unique to the table in the field of brain biomechanics,” Kurt said, crediting his graduate research advsiors, Donald Biggar Willett Professor Alexander Vakakis and Department of Aerospace Professor Emeritus Lawrence Bergman with guiding his training in nonlinear dynamics.

Another thrust of Kurt’s research is to use the brain’s mechanical properties to inform diagnostics. For example, if healthy brain tissue is soft, the detection of stiff tissue could indicate the presence of injury or disease. Some of the clinical populations Kurt works with are Alzheimer’s disease patients and traumatic brain injury, for instance, or other obstructive brain disorders.

“All of these microstructural changes that are associated with certain diseases would result in changes to mechanical properties, giving you a unique way to quantify the mechanics and potentially use that as a diagnostic marker,” Kurt explained.

The excitement Kurt has for the impact of his research in healthcare also extends to his work in creating the LGBTQ+ support network, which he hopes to expand campus-wide at UW – and potentially even beyond, with other university collaborators. He has compiled a resource page for LGBTQ+ students who are interested in joining the PRIDE network (and can also email peerreviewpride@gmail.com).

“I’m very grateful for the education I received from MechSE and the mentorship that was provided to me by the University of Illinois,” Kurt said. “Having experienced the struggle of coming out as a LGBTQ+ student during my graduate studies, I’ve opted to help other students in their journey. I want to create a safe space for them to ask questions and access resources.”