2023 REU trainee Cailey Varnell presented her research on flexible drive actuator for soft lower-limb exoskeletons at the 2024 Emergent Researchers National Conference in STEM in Washington D.C. Cailey worked with Prof. Pepe Contreras-Vidal, Director of the Non-invasive Brain-Machine Interface Systems Laboratory at the NSF IUCRC BRAIN Center. Doctoral student Shan Sarkar served as Cailey’s graduate student mentor. Cailey is an undergraduate student at Austin College majoring in Engineering Physics and minoring in Biology and Art. She intends to go to graduate school for Biomedical Engineering to study rehabilitation engineering and help change people’s lives.