Miiri Kotche

Miiri Kotche is the Richard and Loan Hill Clinical Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Affairs at the University of Illinois Chicago. She is a national leader in bridging engineering and medicine through education, program design, and institutional collaboration.  As Associate Dean, she oversees student affairs and academic progress for more than 5,500 undergraduate engineering students.

Dr. Kotche’s academic work centers on the scholarship of engineering education, particularly the design of interdisciplinary learning environments that bring medical and engineering learners together around unmet clinical needs, healthcare delivery challenges, and technology translation. She has played a key role in designing hands-on, immersive programs that foster team-based problem solving across medicine, engineering, and industry, with a strategic emphasis on experiential learning that connects engineers, medical students and clinicians to address real-world healthcare challenges. Drawing on her prior industry experience in product development, manufacturing, and operations, Dr. Kotche brings a translational, practice-informed perspective to medical and engineering education. She directs the Innovation Medicine program, a co-curricular initiative that engages medical students in exploring technology development in healthcare delivery in collaboration with engineers, designers, and entrepreneurs.

Dr. Kotche is the 2024 recipient of the American Society for Engineering Education’s Theo C. Pilkington Award for outstanding contributions to education, leadership, and research in biomedical engineering. She is a Fellow of both the Biomedical Engineering Society and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and her recognitions include Fulbright Scholar, UIC Master Teaching Scholar, College of Medicine Rising Star, the UIC Award for Excellence in Teaching, and Crain’s Chicago Business’s Notable Women in STEM.