A team of Cooper Union engineering students was awarded the VentureWell Rising Star Prize in the 2026 Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) Challenge for a sensor-equipped insole designed to improve treatment for infants born with clubfoot. The $5,000 award was presented at the annual Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) meeting in Orlando, Florida, on October 23.

Mechanical engineering students David Brokhin and Nora Gallion and electrical engineering student Wilson Jimenez received the award for ClubFoot Instru-Sole, a thin, instrumented sensor that measures pressure within a rigid corrective foot brace. Their project was one of 14 prizewinners in this year’s DEBUT Challenges, one of the most competitive to date, with 119 submissions from 64 colleges and universities across 29 states and a total of 490 participating students. The Cooper team worked under the guidance of Michelle Rosen, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.

Talipes equinovarus—commonly known as clubfoot—is a congenital condition in which one or both feet are turned inward and downward. Treatment for infants often involves the Ponseti method, which requires long-term use of a foot abduction brace, but determining whether the brace fits properly or is causing discomfort can be difficult outside of clinical settings. As a result, parents often remove braces too early. The students’ device addresses this problem with a one-millimeter silicone insole containing five force-sensing resistors that map pressure across the foot. By detecting changes in applied force and foot position, ClubFoot Instru-Sole is designed to ensure proper brace fit and reduce the risk of relapse.

The project originated as a master’s and senior design initiative proposed by Eric Lima, professor of mechanical engineering, and has benefited from the contributions of several generations of Cooper engineering students. Previous contributors include Nathan Wolf-Sonkin ME’25 M.Eng’25, Afifa Areya ME’24, Shahrin Khan ME’24, Alexander Landinez ME’24, Shayna Levin EE’28, and Emily Zao ME’24. 

Sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and VentureWell, the DEBUT Challenge recognizes undergraduate teams developing technologies to address unmet medical needs. VentureWell's Rising Star Prize honors promising biomedical innovations from new or non-R1 biomedical engineering programs.