After completing her PhD in Brown’s Biomedical Engineering program Dr. Josephine Kalshoven feels like “the world is my oyster.” Josephine plans to pursue a career in the medical devices industry, and the possibilities for making a positive impact through the field are endless. “I really do think medical devices are the future for health,” she said.

Wrapping up her undergraduate Biomedical Engineering degree at Dartmouth, Josephine realized there was “so much more that I wanted to be able to do and explore within research.” At Brown, she researched the biomechanics of the thumb joint — a frequent site of osteoarthritis that doesn’t have a great surgical treatment. Josephine sought to better understand the structural degradation in joints with osteoarthritis. For her work, she was selected as a speaker at Brown BME’s 2023 Spring Retreat. 

Josephine has also presented at eight conferences and published in two peer-reviewed scientific publications. She had a short story published in Nature last year, which has now been translated into French and published in Pour La Science. 

While BME was the center of her academic world, Josephine was deeply involved in the broader Brown community. She served as Graduate Student Coordinator for the Brown-RISD Catholic Community and Vice-President of the Brown Graduate Student Council (GSC), all while staying involved with the Brown I-BEAMand Biotech Graduate Advisory Board (BMEB) and Brown Chapter of the Thomistic Institute. “The PhD student experience is so much richer if you are involved in more communities,” she said.

“They want you to succeed:” Why pursue a PhD at Brown?

At Dartmouth, Josephine had a “wonderful time as a research assistant” under an advisor who gave her “a lot of free reign.” Once her research interest was sparked, Josephine felt that “there was just so much in the field that I wanted to learn.”

While she was interviewing at different universities, Brown stood out because “I really felt that they do support their students. They want you to succeed.” Meeting her future advisor, Professor Joseph Crisco, Josephine was inspired by “all the kinds of work and experiences that I would get in the lab.” Professor Crisco was “someone that my advisor in undergrad looked up to, which was very exciting.”

Once at Brown, Josephine said that — even after years of working on the thumb joint and manipulating cadavers to discover new components of its biomechanics — she still “found it fascinating.”

She also gained an understanding of elements of the Biotech business including “marketing and regulation and patenting of devices.” One of Josephine’s favorite classes was Innovation and Commercialization in Medical Devices, Diagnostics, and Wearables, taught by Professor Mostafa Analoui. “It was an incredible opportunity to develop a medical device idea” and then “create a pitch for investment,” Josephine said. She also had an Innovation Fellow position at Brown where she “learned how to do research on a topic quickly and in depth.” 

Those experiences allowed Josephine to gain the entrepreneurial skills necessary to succeed in the medical devices industry. “Your medical device really isn’t worth anything if nobody’s going to buy it, nobody’s going to pay for it, nobody’s going to use it,” she said. “A medical device can’t just be developed in a vacuum inside a lab, otherwise you’re never going to have an impact.”

“Build the lab culture:” Research is better with balance

Throughout her PhD, Josephine learned how to “have a work-life balance” which made her research “not only bearable but enjoyable.” Sometimes in her time away from work she “solved a lot of the most complex issues that I was working on in the back of my brain.”

“I started to do better work in the PhD when I realized that I should invest in time outside of the lab as well,” Josephine said. “You can work sane hours, have healthy work-life boundaries,” and still succeed.

To have that type of balance, Josephine said members of a lab need to support each other. “It’s really important to have a community that recognizes that you’re a human being, not a human doing,” she said. “I think older students are the ones who set the precedent.”

“As you get to be an older PhD student, you’re the leader in your lab and it’s up to you to build the lab culture,” said Josephine. She said it's important those students create a culture where “you still interact positively with each other without distracting each other from work.”

The PhD experience comes with ups and downs, Josephine said, and “having a shoulder to lean on and a community to support each other and let people know they are not alone is crucial.”

“Make community and get involved:” Fostering connections outside of the lab

Outside of the lab, Josephine also emphasized the importance of having a strong community of support. Through BMEB, she was able to build an understanding of the other individuals in the BME community and had strong role models. In the GSC, she was “connected to the larger Brown community.”

 In the Brown-RISD Catholic Community, Josephine was “anchored” and found “wonderful, solid friendships.” She said the community kept her “grounded.”

Once Josephine was in the later years of her PhD, she found ways to be a leader within her communities. “Be a good role model, be a community person who people can reach out to,” she said. By the end of her PhD, she was working to “build up new leadership” so that the organizations she cared about could sustain in the coming years. 

At Brown, “I’ve learned about so many resources that are available to us.” Josephine mentioned that she wished she had taken advantage of the resources available at the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, the Brown Design Workshop, and the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship throughout her time at Brown. “This is a very unique time in life to have so many resources at your fingertips,” she said. 

Outside of formal organizations, the strong interpersonal connections Josephine developed allowed her to better manage the hard parts of her PhD. “Having a community helps” students make timelines, push toward goals, and advocate for themselves. 

“Keep a receptive mind:” Looking back on Josephine’s Brown experience

Josephine emphasized how much she learned throughout her PhD and encouraged others to “pick up as much as you can.” Even during the PhD interview process, Josephine said she learned about campus cultures and communities. She recommends students considering PhDs “start to picture your life” at different schools and “think a little bit ahead.”

Now having completed her PhD, Josephine looks back fondly on the connections she built and the research she conducted. She also said her deepened understanding of medical devices has changed the way she sees the world.

Josephine said even going to donate blood she’s thinking about “the way they collect the blood” and the different devices used. “All these medical devices that we take for granted are being iterated upon constantly,” she said.

Entering the medical devices industry, she’s eager to have a concrete impact on bettering people’s lives. “Talking with friends who have insulin pumps who have literally changed their lives or hearing about the future of bioprinting human organs when people die on organ transplant waitlists, surgical robots — those kind of things are just absolutely incredible,” she said.