David L. Jaffe, MS
Lathrop Library Classroom 282
Tuesdays & Thursdays from 4:30 to 5:50pm PST

Student Project Resource People

Student project resource people are individuals with a variety of professional backgrounds who have agreed to assist students with their projects. Specific expertises include mechanical engineering, occupational therapy, medical devices, assistive technology devices, and prosthetics / orthotics.

	Deborah E. Kenney, MS, OTR/L kenney5 -at- comcast.net Debbie Kenney has been an occupational therapist at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System for the last 18 years - working both in the clinic and at the VA Rehabilitation Research & Development (RR&D) Center where she has collaborated on numerous design and research projects with the engineers and graduate students. Her work has included testing and integrating technology into the rehabilitation setting in the areas of Parkinson's Disease, CVA (stroke), Spinal Cord Injury, hand therapy, and balance as related to aging. Ms. Kenney currently splits her time between her clinical work with post-stroke survivors (REACH) and the RR&D Center. She is also a frequent guest lecturer with the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Santa Clara.
	Douglas F. Schwandt, MS doug.schwandt -at- gmail.com 650/464-3578 Doug Schwandt began his career in Rehabilitation Engineering with a Stanford ME210 (now ME310) design project, on a student team creating the Handbike, the first arm-powered two-wheeled bicycle for lower-limb disabled. After graduation, he continued the Handbike development, and went on to design various other devices for the disabled with the Design Development team at the Palo Alto VA Rehab R&D Center, including finger-spelling hands, hyper/hypo gravity devices and specialty cycle ergometers. Over the years, Doug has also consulted on various exciting and challenging projects outside of the VA, including exercise concepts for long-term space travel, MRI compatible fixtures and mobility devices, and robots for physical therapy. No longer a VA employee, Doug continues to work as a consultant to universities and companies as a free-lance consulting design engineer, and part-time as a springboard diving coach.
	Gary M. Berke, MS, CP, FAAOP gmberke -at- stanford.edu 650/365-5861 Gary M. Berke is an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor and Director of Prosthetics in Stanford's Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and owner of Gary M. Berke Prosthetics / Orthotics in Redwood City. He has worked and lectured nationally and internationally on prosthetic care and has multiple publications. He has a keen interest in investigating cost effective technologies for enhancement of the lives of those required to use prostheses and orthoses daily while reducing the cost of prothetic and orthotic care in the future.
	Jules Sherman jules -at- julessherman.com 805/705-9433 Jules Sherman is a designer and entrepreneur who is passionate about designing human-centered products that improve quality of life. Jules holds an MFA from the Stanford Graduate Design Program. As a product designer, she is particularly interested in improving the aesthetics and usability of assistive technology. Jules is currently working on a lactation support device for moms with premature infants, and a new piece of operating room equipment that supports delayed cord-clamping and CPAP resuscitation during a premature C-section birth.
	Craig Milroy milroy -at- stanford.edu 650/723-2179 Director of the Product Realization Lab Craig Milroy serves as Senior Lecturer at Stanford University in the Design Division of Mechanical Engineering and manages the Product Realization Lab, a teaching facility where Stanford students come to learn design, manufacturing, and prototyping. His concentration is on product conceptualization, and strategic planning during the design process. Craig teaches over four courses each year in design and engineering, including the first course at Stanford devoted solely to the development of medical devices. He started his career as an engineer in the Biomechanics Laboratories of the Department of Orthopedics, University of Iowa, where he helped develop an artificial hip replacement, and studied knee and wrist pathomechanics. He was previously employed at Raychem Corporation, where he was involved in the conceptualization and engineering of multiple product lines and technological products. His last position at Raychem was as Department Manager, Product Design Group, responsible for development of the strategic planning process. Throughout his career, Craig has done considerable engineering consulting and holds 11 patents. His educational background includes a Bachelor's Degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Iowa, and two Master's degrees from Stanford University (Mechanical Engineering and Product Design).
	Marlo Dreissigacker Kohn marlod -at- stanford.edu 650/248-1939 Associate Director of the Product Realization Lab Marlo Dreissigacker Kohn (BS ’05 Product Design; MS ’07 Mechanical Engineering) is the Associate Director of the Product Realization Lab and a Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering. Kohn is the creator and founding manager of the PRL’s satellite prototyping lab known as Room 36, which serves thousands of Stanford students each year. Kohn has developed and taught new PRL courses each year including Making Is Thinking Introductory Seminar, Drawing and Design, 3D Printing for Acoustics, Flexible Part Design, and Making Multiples: Scaled Manufacturing Tooling. Before joining the PRL, Kohn was a Product Manager and Research and Development Engineer at Vibrynt and served internships at Barosense, Apple, and Atlas Snowshoe. Kohn was an invited speaker at the First International Symposium on Academic Makerspaces held at MIT in 2016, and is the co-author of the academic paper "Coaches and Their Impact: One Model for Empowering Teaching As-sistants in an Academic Makerspace," presented in November 2016.
	Dan Somen dansomen -at- stanford.edu Manager of the Product Realization Lab's Room 36 Dan Somen is the Manager of Room 36, the Product Realization Lab’s rapid prototyping facility, and a Lecturer in Stanford University’s Mechanical Engineering department. Somen, who holds an MS in Product Design from Stanford (2015) and a BS in Engineering and Applied Science from CalTech (2003) served as a PRL Teaching Assistant from 2013 to 2015. Before coming to Stanford, Somen was a consultant and senior engineer at Design Integrity, and a mechanical engineer at Visualize Inc and WMS Gaming.

Updated 09/11/2023