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A New Chapter for Chelsea Neumann

Chelsea Neumann speaks from a lectern for Maryland Department of Transportation, Maryland Aviation Administration

Celebrate Women and Multiracial Engineers

Problem-solving with compassion empowers MPower Fellow

Entering college during the COVID pandemic made Clark School resources—including those provided by the Women in Engineering (WIE) program and their Flexus living-and-learning community—key to the success of bioengineering alum Chelsea Neumann ’25. However, it’s her talent for problem-solving with compassion that earned her a spot in the seventh cohort of Fischell Institute and MPower Entrepreneurship Fellows.

In her undergraduate career, Neumann led the bioengineering department (BIOE) Alumni Cup team each year and earned service awards from BIOE and the WIE program.

Off campus, she rescued and rehabilitated horses at home in Virginia. (She also has a personal horse named Edelweiss, nicknamed “Evie.”) “Rescuing horses, you have to learn on the fly and adapt quickly to keep everyone safe,” she says. “Like with engineering, it’s hands-on problem solving. I translated that drive and compassion for animals into working for people.”

Pursuing the burgeoning field of veterinary medical devices

Neumann, who is pursuing her M.Eng. in bioengineering, joins the MPower team with a history of medical device research and development. Her work, under the direction of clinical mentor and University of Maryland School of Medicine Associate Professor Joseph Rabin, M.D., continues her senior capstone project, a tracheostomy dilation device meant to decrease procedure time and mitigate risks associated with the current standard of care. With her interest in medical device design and experience working for a startup—“wearing all the hats”—Neumann would love to one day work for a startup in veterinary medical devices, a growing field.

Opening STEM to young people

A group of women wearing red UMD shirts, including Chelsea Neumann

She also serves as the WIE program graduate assistant, focusing on outreach, including summer programs, the Get Outside and Learn (GOAL) Engineering Kit Program, and “overall, working to inspire young students to pursue STEM in school or for a career,” she says.

She counts her time as a teaching fellow for Flexus and Virtus living-and-learning programs among her most meaningful undergraduate experiences. The summer after her second year, she worked with WIE Director Paige Smith to refine the curriculum around persons with disabilities, before teaching it over two years.

“The WIE staff cared enough to acknowledge the need for change and my desire to share my passions,” she explains. “I see people with disabilities as the world’s greatest problem solvers, because every day they are navigating a world that often doesn’t accommodate them.”

Inviting unique viewpoints for stronger STEM

Chelsea Neumann wearing graduation regalia, posing with family members

In high school, Neumann, who identifies as a woman and as multi-racial, found her STEM classes to be majority male, so she was pleasantly surprised to find an environment representing many backgrounds in BIOE.

What’s more, her understanding of her Asian culture evolved at UMD. While she knew her grandfather had been an emergency doctor in the Philippines and in the U.S., she hadn’t considered how much of their culture her grandparents had left behind when they emigrated—until Neumann took a class called Filipino-American History and Biography.

“The course was focused on the human experience, and it made me appreciate my background and family even more,” she says. Working through ClarkLEAD and other programs, Neumann says her positive experiences on campus make her want to ensure all students “can bring their valuable viewpoints to the table.”

Published March 2, 2026