Student Name: Elaine Keegan
Institution: Ulster University
Supervisors: Professor Dewar Finlay
I am from Armagh, in Northern Ireland and I attend Ulster University in Belfast. I began my University journey in 2019 where I started working towards a bachelor's in Biomedical Engineering. While in my third year, I worked in Medtronic, Galway for my industrial placement. After returning to University I swapped to the Integrated Masters’. I graduated in July 2024 with a First Class Honours MEng in Biomedical Engineering and a Diploma in Professional Practice with Distinction.
While working at Medtronic, I was part of the Operational Excellence team. I played a key role in projects I supported where I collected and analysed data, and supported a variety of projects, ranging from visualisation of the manufacturing floor to helping develop new lines. I even left behind two standards I made and was involved in creating a new revision of a handbook.
Outside of my university life, I show and compete with my dogs in different disciplines. I have even qualified and competed at Crufts several times. I enjoy horse riding, although I don’t have one of my own, and I love playing board games!
My Master’ Dissertation title was “Machine Learning Techniques for Atrial Fibrillation”. This included using MATLAB to filter, identify points in the Electro Cardiogram signals and complete statistical analysis on a set of ECG to identify if the signal was normal or not (if it was an example of Atrial Fibrillation (AF)). This project was really enjoyable and I liked being able to improve my coding skills (especially MATLAB). It was interesting to see how different algorithms worked (and which ones complimented each other in this application) to achieve the greatest number of successfully identified AF ECG’s.
I want to continue exploring and using MATLAB as I know it has a greater potential than how I have used it to date. This was reinforced at a recent MATLAB training I attended in UCL, I would love to continue to expand my knowledge of the alternative applications available.