About

Joe Bradley is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His educational background includes a PhD in Systems Engineering and an MBA from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, as well as a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University, and a B.S.E. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His professional roles encompass positions as a Teaching Assistant Professor at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, Entrepreneurial Mindset Fellow at the Academy for Excellence in Engineering Education, and Health Innovation Professor at the Carle-Illinois College of Medicine. He has also served as a Research Affiliate at Vanderbilt University and a Lecturer at the University of Illinois in both the Grainger College of Engineering and Gies College of Business. His research interests focus on STEM education within biomedical engineering, entrepreneurial management, innovation management, technology transfer, strategy, socio-technical systems design, and complex engineered systems. Bradley has contributed to the field through chapters in books, articles in journals, and conference proceedings, emphasizing approaches to teaching and assessing capstone design courses, interdisciplinary biomedical engineering education, and the integration of industry practices into engineering curricula. His work also explores the role of social networks in product development, organizational response to stress, and the impact of university technology transfer offices on inclusive innovation. Bradley actively participates in professional societies such as the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), and he is involved in college committees related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Engineering management
• Engineering
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Engineering ethics
• Political Science
• Pedagogy
• Psychology

Selected publications

• Generative Artificial Intelligence in Medical Training: Utilization Patterns Across Knowledge, Patient Care, Systems Reasoning, and Innovation

  Medical Science Educator · 2026-01-04

  articleOpen access

  Since 2022, generative artificial intelligence (AI) use has grown rapidly across many sectors, including medical education. While prior research has explored perceptions of AI, the understanding of AI use amongst medical trainees has been limited. This study surveyed medical trainees to better identify the patterns of generative AI use. Results showed varying patterns based on the phase of training, with ChatGPT emerging as the predominantly used platform across all phases. While awareness of AI policies was limited, the majority reported efforts for responsible use of AI. Implications include understanding of equitable access and onboarding regarding AI use policies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Equipping Undergraduate Engineering Students for Professional Success: An Exploration of Multiple Approaches to Career Development

  2025-08-21

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Enhancing Biomedical Engineering Education Through Curricular Innovation: Developing Industry-Ready Engineers

  Biomedical Engineering Education · 2025-02-10 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• An Adaptive Scaffolding Approach Based on Team Dynamics in an Integrated Masters and Undergraduate Bioengineering Capstone Design Course

  2024-08-03

  articleOpen access

  He holds a B.S. in bioengineering also from

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Development and Implementation of K-12 STEM Outreach Programs in Industry and Academia: Successes, Challenges, and Lessons Learned

  2024-08-04

  articleOpen access

  Abstract According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the number of job openings in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) occupations is projected to grow by almost 11% by 2031. To meet this projected demand, industry and academia need to implement outreach initiatives to encourage student recruitment into STEM degree fields. While most outreach initiatives typically focus on high school students, research shows that students' career decisions are influenced at a much earlier age. Therefore, it is necessary for industry and academia to target an even younger demographic all the way to kindergarten and first grade. This presentation highlights different outreach initiatives developed by the authors in academia and industry to teach K-12 students about STEM. The primary goal of these programs is to make younger students aware and excited about career opportunities in STEM fields. These outreach initiatives utilize innovative teaching strategies and curricula to teach K-12 students about STEM, what skills are necessary to work in STEM careers, and what types of careers opportunities are available. During the presentation, a summary of each program will be shared as well as program successes, challenges, and lessons learned. As a result of attending this session, participants will: • understand the value of outreach programs to K-12 students and other community organizations • learn about innovative presentation strategies and activities that could be incorporated into similar programs at other institutions and companies • learn how to incorporate current higher education students and industry employees into outreach initiatives

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Exploring Opportunities for Innovative Professional Impact: Implementation of a Multidisciplinary Course

  2024-08-04

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Engineering programs offer programmatic opportunities for students to develop the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes to be prepared as holistic engineers for professional endeavors. Students have numerous career choices available to them after graduation, and there is an opportunity to teach students how to navigate these options and make decisions that align with their professional and personal values and goals. This paper describes the implementation of a new course entitled Pathways to Impact offered at a large university that was created with the formal objective of exposing students to various professional pathway options and decision-making considerations. This course serves to enhance student confidence in understanding the different ways in which they can make an impact throughout their careers, all while creating a learning experience that aims to strengthen students' entrepreneurial mindset. To achieve this objective during the first offering, this course utilized active learning techniques, personal reflection, and the development of an individualized career-impact roadmap by each student. In order to work in conjunction with programming available from existing career centers and academic advising, this interdisciplinary course placed an emphasis on personal reflection and the roles of innovation and technology commercialization in creating societal impact. This paper describes the logistics of developing and implementing this 1-credit hour course and provides details of the assignments used to assess student learning. This course can serve as an example to other institutions who seek to more fully empower their students to understand various career pathways—including through new venture creation, industry, or research and academia—and make career decisions that align with students' personal values and goals.

  PublisherDOI

• Bridging Extracurricular Skill Needs in Bioengineering Capstone Design with Just-in-Time Workshops

  2024-08-04

  article

  Abstract Bioengineering senior design courses play a pivotal role in preparing students for real-world challenges by engaging them in interdisciplinary design projects. The rapid evolution of technology combined with students' diverse backgrounds often result in gaps in their foundational knowledge and skill sets. These gaps in knowledge and practical prototyping experience create challenges for students when engaging with the variety of design projects that are proposed. This paper presents an effort to address these skill gaps through the implementation of hands-on workshop modules within a bioengineering senior design course. These workshops - which occur "Just-in-Time" as students enter the prototyping phase - are strategically designed to align with requirements of the ongoing, externally sponsored senior design projects. Workshops include computer aided design (CAD), microcontroller programming, elastomer molding and casting, and programming in Python, and students were required to attend at least one of their choice. Workshop topics were selected after reviewing gaps in core curriculum and considering which skills would be most applicable to rapid prototyping. We mapped workshop attendance to team projects to understand student motivation for attendance, and collected student feedback after each workshop. Feedback was collected on the perceived utility of the workshops to capstone projects as well as the perceived value of the workshop to students' future careers. We also evaluated evidence of the prototyping techniques present in final course projects to understand how the skills gained in workshops are used or expanded upon during the semester. Delivering these workshops throughout the course allows students to immediately use and apply these skills on their own design projects, which offers a unique advantage to the Just-in-Time modality. Results reveal the potential of Just-in-Time workshops to enhance experiential learning, reduce barriers to prototyping, and empower students to overcome obstacles encountered during the design process.

  PublisherDOI

• Designing Capstone Experiences for Interdisciplinarity in Biomedical Engineering Education

  2024 · 9 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Engineering ethics
  • Computer Science

  Abstract Teamwork is a mainstay of today's workplace environment. This is especially true in healthcare and engineering fields, where work is so interdependent that teams are a dominant means to facilitating progress. Design and capstone courses are one of the places where biomedical engineering students develop skills needed for success in a team-based workplace. Our department participates in several levels of design across programs. This includes Capstone in the Bachelors (BS) program, Professional Capstone in the Master of Engineering (MEng) program, and the Capstone Projects course in the College of Medicine. Having multiple disconnected levels of design presents numerous challenges, such as sourcing projects, structuring the scope of projects, and sharing resources both physical and personnel related. As a result, we elected to develop a shared resource model for projects across these programs in order to meet the needs of each program and to enhance the learning experience and professional preparation for students. In this new model, medical students develop projects based on needs identified during clinical rotations. Medical students then serve as clients for an engineering student team. Engineering teams are composed of MEng student project managers and BS student engineers, working on the project over the course of their capstone classes. Yet, the design and implementation of an interdisciplinary curriculum can be a challenge for instructors and students alike. These challenges may be due to differences in epistemological views, constraints of the higher education system, or a lack of frameworks that support interdisciplinary approaches. In this paper, we will share a framework for a design continuum of biomedically focused projects to provide students within our programs a design experience relevant to appropriate academic, clinical, and industry roles and functions while optimizing department resources. To develop the collaboration, we applied an evidence-based science approach to conduct a human-centered design study integrated with insights from the literature to develop a more general understanding of the nature, form, and opportunities of cross-boundary coordination across multiple programs and multiple types of projects. Through multiple stakeholder analyses we created an updated design experience where medical school students, masters, and bachelors students worked together toward a common project goal. This paper summarizes results from a one-year pilot of the collaboration. The framework includes defined competencies and deliverables for each program along the spectrum of engineering design. Additionally, quantitative and qualitative surveys along with assessment of artifacts from the collaborative projects were used to assess the success of the framework. The strategies discussed in this paper may provide insight into the ways that collaboration among co-instructors can support the creation of learning experiences that overcome the challenges of isolated disciplinary experiences.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Changes to a Circuits Lab Sequence to Encourage Reflection and Integration of Experiences Across Related Courses to Explore New Solution Spaces to an Engineering Problem

  2024-02-07 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Engineering design requires the evaluation of trade-offs within a solution space to fit the constraints and demands of a specific application. An engineering curriculum provides its students a tailored series of courses to meet this goal. Course instructors anticipate students to regularly make connections to materials of past courses, assimilate the new information of the current course, and then explore expanded solution spaces. Disappointment arises when students fail to make these connections or often fail to recall fundamental concepts necessary to make informed decisions. In this paper we describe changes made to a junior level class to help students recall content from earlier courses on a particular topic in Electrical Engineering. This reflection better enables them to compare and contrast new material and even make connections with future course and industry solutions. Our initial survey indicates that student perception of these changes has been positive. Furthermore, a majority of the students responding to the survey suggest including similar exercises in lab modules on other topics.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Exploratory Study of the Perceptions of Biasness, Inclusivity, and Team Dynamics in Entrepreneurship Education Training

  2024-02-06

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Broadening participation in entrepreneurship is an important topic and critical challenge that continues to gain attention and intervention programs within the STEM entrepreneurial ecosystem. However, the challenges of people of color in STEM entrepreneurship are amplified in technology intensive and the high-growth space of STEM innovation. Researchers, practitioners, academic scholars, and policy-makers have focused on training entrepreneurs of color in an inclusive way that considers both similarities and the uniqueness of the individuals that may be interested in a career as an entrepreneur. The National Science Foundation I-Corps is one such training program. Established in 2012, the I-Corps program brings NSF-funded researchers and industry expert together in an entrepreneurship and innovation training course. The expectation is that the training will lead to a growth in the translation of "deep tech" and in the creation of entrepreneurial ventures. The I-Corps program consists of both regional training as well as a national training program. Participation in the national program requires the formation of a team that consists of a Technical Lead, Entrepreneurial Lead, and a Business Mentor. Under-represented Groups (URGs) and women participation in I-Corps has been relatively low since inception. In this paper, we use survey data to explore the relationship amongst the differing roles and their perception as a participant in the national I-Corps training program. We consider demographics and gender identity to explore the experiences of the National I-Corps program participants. Additionally, we explore the impact of the engagement of the I-Corps staff with the participants and the perception of inclusivity and biasness within the training program.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Anand Nageswaran Bharath

  Cummins (United Kingdom)

  30 shared

• Jennifer Warrner

  Ball State University

  25 shared

• Sirena Hargrove-Leak

  Elon University

  25 shared

• Holly Golecki

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  13 shared

• Jennifer Amos

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  11 shared

• Eliot Bethke

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  10 shared

• Ali Ansari

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  10 shared

• Keilin Jahnke

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  9 shared