Mr. Rishabh Jain graduated magna cum laude with Departmental Distinction in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University, where he was elected, in his junior year, to Tau Beta Pi. His research interests have spanned diverse fields, from bioengineering to technology policy to rural healthcare access. His senior thesis work as a Pratt Research Fellow consisted of designing a self-assembling, peptide-based supramolecular vaccine for Zika virus, for which he received the Howard G. Clark Award for Excellence in Research. He has also conducted research on injectable hydrogels for tissue repair after stroke as a Huang Fellow and has published on the pitfalls of thermal facial recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Journal of Law and the Biosciences as a Bass Connections Research Fellow.
Mr. Jain is a contributor to the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Editor’s Choice section and authored two chapters in an upcoming book on the ocular manifestations of systemic disease. He spent a summer interning at a CAR-T cell company and authoring an investment thesis on cell and gene therapy for a biotechnology-focused venture capital firm.
On campus, Mr. Jain served as Co-Founder and Co-President of the Duke chapter of Remote Area Medical (RAM), a national nonprofit that organizes free pop-up clinics to provide medical, dental, and vision care. With RAM, he led undergraduates and graduate students in multi-dimensional service, research, and advocacy efforts to improve healthcare access for underserved communities, culminating in the deployment of the first RAM clinic in North Carolina.
In his free time, Mr. Jain loves to cook and try new dishes. In 2019, he founded The Black Tile, a pop-up supper club where he served four-course tasting menus to six Duke students at a time. By donating profits to the local food bank, he has been able to provide almost 6000 meals to those in need. He also volunteered with Root Causes, an organization that delivers free, healthy food to food-insecure families.
India has the highest disease burden of uncorrected refractive error (URE) in the world, as measured by disability-adjusted life years. Refractive surgery has been able to vastly improve vision in patients with URE, but there are crucial decisions around the type and parameters of these surgeries that influence patient outcomes and affect postoperative complications. Mr. Jain’s Fulbright-Nehru project is focused on the use of artificial intelligence in refractive surgery, applying deep learning algorithms to the Indian population.