Stories

David Diebold ’20 will be conducting research in Ghana where he will assist a local nonprofit in optimizing the local emergency medical response system by introducing offline GPS ambulance routing and medical drone integration. “The end goal is to scale the system implemented in Ghana across the continent and optimize and increase access to emergency medical response across Africa,” he said.

Diebold was raised on the island of Oahu, Hawai'i, by two Army physicians who emphasized three key values: hard work, kindness, and service to all human beings.

“I was interested in medicine but also loved technology, so I came to SCU to explore both with SCU's pre-med bioengineering major,” he said. His Fulbright project emerged as part of the SCU Global Fellows program, when Diebold traveled to Kumasi, Ghana, with two classmates to work at Bright Generation Community Foundation. “I worked half time trying to produce a locally sourced Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Food formula to treat local infant malnutrition and the other half at a hospital in their ER,” said Diebold.

As an SCU student, Diebold received the Provost Research Award and has also been involved in immersion programs and the Engineers Without Borders program.

Since graduating from SCU, Diebold worked for 18 months at UCSF Neurosurgery doing procedural development and immunotherapeutics research. He is now a clinical development engineer for Intuitive Surgical, where he contributes to the design of new da Vinci surgical robotics platforms.

About the Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The program operates in more than 155 countries worldwide. For further information please visit https://us.fulbrightonline.org/.