ANDREW BLAKEMORE
2026-27 Traveling Fellow
Designed for Living: Exploring the Boundaries of Everyday Life With Modern Prosthetics
During his year abroad, Andrew will explore how modern prostheses enable individuals with limb loss to navigate and fully engage in everyday life. Drawing on both technical and human-centered perspectives, he will meet with prosthetic engineers, clinicians, and researchers to better understand how these devices are intentionally designed for real-world use. Equally important, he will engage directly with prosthetic users to examine how these technologies shape daily routines, independence, identity, and connection. He is particularly interested in the intersection of industry, research, and lived experience, and how collaboration across these spaces drives innovation that is both functional and meaningful. Building on recent advancements in neuro-integrated control systems, additive manufacturing, and artificial intelligence, Andrew will also investigate how emerging technologies are reshaping the field of prosthetics and expanding access to more adaptable and personalized solutions.
As part of his project, Andrew will use photography as a primary tool for storytelling, documenting how prosthetic devices are used across diverse cultural and environmental contexts. By capturing moments of work, creativity, and everyday life, he aims to highlight experiences that are often overlooked in technical and academic discussions. Through interviews, observation, and visual documentation, he will examine how access to prosthetic care varies across regions, especially in relation to disparities in healthcare infrastructure and economic resources. Ultimately, his project seeks to better understand how prosthetics function not only as engineered devices, but as deeply human technologies that shape agency, belonging, and quality of life around the world.
Hometown: Lexington, Kentucky
Majors/Minors: Biomedical Engineering/Digital Fabrication
Born in Idaho and raised in Kentucky, Andrew is the second of five children. After graduating high school in 2021, he attended Brigham Young University, where he studied biology on the pre-med track. During his two years at BYU, Andrew became deeply involved in student government and conducted research in the Nematode Evolution Lab, where he designed a project investigating Antarctic soil community ecology.
In 2023, Andrew transferred to Vanderbilt to study biomedical engineering. At Vanderbilt, he was engaged across a range of organizations, including Engineers Without Borders, Tikkun Olam Makers, and the Biomedical Engineering Society. He served on the inaugural board of the Vanderbilt Photo Society, further developing a passion for photography that began during his time at BYU. Dedicated to supporting fellow transfer students, Andrew served as a Transfer Student Leader and later as Vice President of Transfer Connect, where he was recognized as the 2024–2025 Outstanding Executive Board Member for his contributions to transfer programming. He was also selected as a member of the second cohort of the Live. Learn. Lead. Academy, where he chaired the logistics committee for the 2026 Chris Krause Leadership Symposium.
One of Andrew’s most meaningful experiences at Vanderbilt was participating in the 2025 BME Service Learning trip to Guatemala, where he collaborated with students from Universidad del Valle de Guatemala to repair medical equipment in local hospitals. Beyond campus, he has continued this commitment to global health through his work as a biomedical technician intern at Project C.U.R.E.’s Nashville warehouse, repairing donated medical devices for distribution to resource-limited communities around the world.