Education

PhD, Biomedical Engineering, Western University

Biography

Asha Parekh completed her BESc and MEng in the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and completed her PhD in August 2015 in the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program at Western University. Her PhD research was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Wankei Wan, with a focus on the durability of bioprosthetic heart valves. Parekh’s research interests lie in the field of biomaterials and medical devices.

In her spare time, Parekh has volunteered with the London Food Bank, as a children’s dance instructor throughout the London community and as a day camp leader with the Hindu Cultural Centre.

While a Medical Innovation Fellow at Western, Parekh would team up with Lawson’s Dr. Nicholas Power and her peer medical innovation fellows in the Fight Against Cancer Innovation Trust (FACIT)’s annual competition. One invention submitted by the trio would go on to win the $50,000 grand prize, taking both the inaugural Ernsting Entrepreneurship Award and the Audience Choice Award. After completing the MIF program, Parekh would go on to a postdoctoral fellowship with London Health Sciences Centre. She then co-founded a medical device company, Front Line Medical Technologies and is the company’s CEO.

Publications

Parekh, Asha, “Calcification Of Bovine Pericardial Aortic Heart Valves” (2015). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 3141. http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/3141