2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Our world’s most pressing biomedical challenges, including the rise of emerging infectious diseases and climate-driven health crises, cross national boundaries and demand international cooperation. Engineers play a pivotal role in addressing these issues by applying their expertise to develop innovative technologies and systems that improve health outcomes globally. Preparing engineers to lead and innovate in this interconnected world requires pedagogical efforts that foster multicultural competencies. Yet, traditional engineering curricula often fail to provide opportunities to cultivate the skills needed for effective international collaboration.

To address this gap, we implemented an international virtual exchange between biomedical engineering graduate students at a public university in the United States and bioengineering undergraduate students at a private university in Colombia. International virtual exchange uses technology to connect classes with students, faculty, and researchers abroad to collaborate on assignments and acquire discipline-specific global perspectives. This exchange, conducted over 6-7 weeks, tasked university students with designing an engineering solution to a critical health problem in their partner country. Through synchronous and asynchronous collaboration, students identified specific biomedical needs in each other’s healthcare ecosystems and provided feedback on potential engineering solutions.

Challenges of the implementation included differences in semester timing between institutions, uneven class sizes, potential language barriers, and lack of access to a reliable network that impaired full participation in synchronous activities by a subset of students. Various technological solutions were employed to address some of these challenges. Formative assessments included video summaries of identified health needs and 3-minute solution pitches. Students also submitted reflections before, during, and after the exchange. Additionally, students completed pre- and post-surveys, the IntCRIT and IntCOMM instruments that assess changes in critical thinking about global issues and intercultural communication skills. In these surveys, students report significant gains in their ability to manage when faced with multiple perspectives, think critically to interpret global and intercultural issues, recognize how different cultures solve problems, and articulate their points of view to members of other cultures.

This work underscores the value of virtual exchanges in broadening access to internationalization opportunities among undergraduate and graduate students while fostering critical thinking, cross-cultural communication, and the ability to work collaboratively across borders to address global challenges.