Laura Santoso is an Internal Medicine resident physician at UCLA pursuing a career in Pulmonary and Critical Care. From observing the challenges that she sees people face as a clinician, her mission is to use engineering and design thinking to help improve people’s quality of life. She is interested in applying these tools to propel innovation in the intensive care unit and to address the growing impacts of environmental exposures on health in vulnerable communities. Previously as a Clayton Foundation Research Fellow at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, she led development from concept to human subjects research of a novel ambulatory swallowing monitor and non-invasive neuromodulation therapy for dysphagia. She received her M.D. from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and was a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honors Society. She holds a B.S. with honors in bioengineering from the California Institute of Technology.