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Photo by: Maria Lysaker/Rice University At
Speeding Things Up
11/6/2019 10:56:00 AM | Women's Track & Field
Rice sprinter Hannah Jackson has taken her athletic mindset to the medical field
Hannah Jackson has spent most of her life in an attempt to save a little bit of time.
As a sprinter, she spends countless hours working to shave a few hundredths, or maybe a tenth, of a second off her personal records. Now as a budding biomedical engineer, she and a group of five other students have developed a time-saving process that could dramatically speed up the setting of fractured bones.
Her sprinting career started as a youngster on the soccer pitch, where her parents and coaches noticed that she was faster than the other players, including the boys, which led her to add track to the mix. She continued with both sports, and occasionally dabbled in others, up to her junior year in high school where a back injury curtailed her soccer days.
However, on the track she took a bit of a detour to the sprints. Despite reaching the Junior Olympics nationals in the 100 meters as a youth, her high school coach initially identified her as a 400-meter runner.
"My coach thought that I was built as a 400m runner and he didn't believe my speed would develop enough to be competitive with the other sprinters at that level," Jackson said.
During her junior year at Sulphur (La.) High School, Jackson was entered in both the 400 and 200 at the same meet. She ran okay in the 400, according to Jackson, but won the 200 despite being exhausted from the previous race.
"That was the moment I transitioned to becoming a 100/200m runner," she said. "Although I still do run the 400m occasionally."
As a high school senior, she was the 2015 Louisiana class 5A champion in the 200 meters, setting a new state record of 23.59 seconds. She also established district and regional records in both the 100 and 200 meters that same year, which led to her selection as the Gatorade Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year for the Pelican State.
Once an Owl, Jackson has continued chipping away at her personal bests in both the 100 and 200 meters, culminating in victory at the 2018 C-USA Indoor Championships during her junior season. Her time of 23.25, a massive PR, also set new conference and school records.
"I had not been running the indoor 200 meters very well because the indoor tracks are banked and we don't have one to practice on at Rice," she said. "It all just somehow clicked and I figured out how to run on the curves!"
One week later she sliced another 12 one-hundredths off her best, racing to a 23.13 in Boston to qualify for the NCAA indoor championships.
She followed up that successful undercover campaign with a sterling outdoor season, garnering the 2018 C-USA Outdoor Track Performer of the Meet with a conference title in the 100 meters to go along with a runner-up finish in the 200 and a fifth-place in the 4x100 relay.
Having already completed her undergraduate degree, Jackson is pursuing her masters degree in bioengineering while preparing for her final season on the track for the Owls.
And while she has earned many honors for her athletic achievements, she may very well end up more recognized in the world of academia when all is said and done.
The two-time C-USA Commissioner's Honor Roll member, who also earned All-Academic Team honors from the United State Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association last year, chose Rice not just for its quality track and field staff, but also for the school's unparalleled academic reputation and associations. And its proximity to her hometown, just in case she needs some home cooking.
"I liked Rice because it has an amazing bioengineering program and amazing connections with the Texas Medical Center," Jackson said. "I also loved Rice because it is close to my hometown so every now and then I can drive home to Louisiana and see my family.
"I wanted to study bioengineering because I love medicine, but I also love building things and solving problems. As a doctor, I wouldn't get the experience of trying new things or solving issues that had never been addressed before – but this is the whole goal of bioengineering."
The senior project that she and five other students collaborated on won the top prize, Excellence in Engineering, in the George R. Brown Engineering Design Showcase and Poster Competition. The project designed a device to simplify the process of the placement of screws that secure metal rods to fractured long bones in the arm or leg.
Rather than relying somewhat on trial and error, along with the doctor's experience, to secure surgical screws through the bone into the titanium rods holding the affected bone together, Jackson and the rest of Drill Team Six, as they named themselves, developed a new process utilizing removable magnetic wiring to help improve the accuracy of drilling.
"We want to reduce the amount of X-rays, the surgeon's time, the operating room time, the setup time, everything," team member Will Yarinsky told The Med Center News.
The device will require FDA approval before it can be used on humans.
"Our device prototype is being handed off to a new senior design team this year that I am TA'ing and my teammate Byung-Uk Kang is mentoring," Jackson said. "We are hoping they can improve on our prototype and possibly develop it as a start-up."
Jackson is applying to Ph.D. programs and will continue her education following her graduation with a masters degree from Rice in May.
"I love research and want to make a career out of it," she said. "I also love teaching and so a career in academia is something that interests me."
As she prepares for her graduation and continued education, Jackson eyes the 2020 season as one of the conference's favorites in her specialties, both indoor and outdoor.
"From a track standpoint, the coaches at Rice are incredibly kind and understanding. The track team is a very tight family and it makes balancing academics with athletics easier.
"The team members are also very invested in their academics as well and so we can all relate to each other, which is not something you see often at other athletic programs."
As a sprinter, she spends countless hours working to shave a few hundredths, or maybe a tenth, of a second off her personal records. Now as a budding biomedical engineer, she and a group of five other students have developed a time-saving process that could dramatically speed up the setting of fractured bones.
Her sprinting career started as a youngster on the soccer pitch, where her parents and coaches noticed that she was faster than the other players, including the boys, which led her to add track to the mix. She continued with both sports, and occasionally dabbled in others, up to her junior year in high school where a back injury curtailed her soccer days.
However, on the track she took a bit of a detour to the sprints. Despite reaching the Junior Olympics nationals in the 100 meters as a youth, her high school coach initially identified her as a 400-meter runner.
"My coach thought that I was built as a 400m runner and he didn't believe my speed would develop enough to be competitive with the other sprinters at that level," Jackson said.
During her junior year at Sulphur (La.) High School, Jackson was entered in both the 400 and 200 at the same meet. She ran okay in the 400, according to Jackson, but won the 200 despite being exhausted from the previous race.
"That was the moment I transitioned to becoming a 100/200m runner," she said. "Although I still do run the 400m occasionally."
As a high school senior, she was the 2015 Louisiana class 5A champion in the 200 meters, setting a new state record of 23.59 seconds. She also established district and regional records in both the 100 and 200 meters that same year, which led to her selection as the Gatorade Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year for the Pelican State.
Once an Owl, Jackson has continued chipping away at her personal bests in both the 100 and 200 meters, culminating in victory at the 2018 C-USA Indoor Championships during her junior season. Her time of 23.25, a massive PR, also set new conference and school records.
"I had not been running the indoor 200 meters very well because the indoor tracks are banked and we don't have one to practice on at Rice," she said. "It all just somehow clicked and I figured out how to run on the curves!"
One week later she sliced another 12 one-hundredths off her best, racing to a 23.13 in Boston to qualify for the NCAA indoor championships.
She followed up that successful undercover campaign with a sterling outdoor season, garnering the 2018 C-USA Outdoor Track Performer of the Meet with a conference title in the 100 meters to go along with a runner-up finish in the 200 and a fifth-place in the 4x100 relay.
Having already completed her undergraduate degree, Jackson is pursuing her masters degree in bioengineering while preparing for her final season on the track for the Owls.
And while she has earned many honors for her athletic achievements, she may very well end up more recognized in the world of academia when all is said and done.
The two-time C-USA Commissioner's Honor Roll member, who also earned All-Academic Team honors from the United State Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association last year, chose Rice not just for its quality track and field staff, but also for the school's unparalleled academic reputation and associations. And its proximity to her hometown, just in case she needs some home cooking.
"I liked Rice because it has an amazing bioengineering program and amazing connections with the Texas Medical Center," Jackson said. "I also loved Rice because it is close to my hometown so every now and then I can drive home to Louisiana and see my family.
"I wanted to study bioengineering because I love medicine, but I also love building things and solving problems. As a doctor, I wouldn't get the experience of trying new things or solving issues that had never been addressed before – but this is the whole goal of bioengineering."
The senior project that she and five other students collaborated on won the top prize, Excellence in Engineering, in the George R. Brown Engineering Design Showcase and Poster Competition. The project designed a device to simplify the process of the placement of screws that secure metal rods to fractured long bones in the arm or leg.
Rather than relying somewhat on trial and error, along with the doctor's experience, to secure surgical screws through the bone into the titanium rods holding the affected bone together, Jackson and the rest of Drill Team Six, as they named themselves, developed a new process utilizing removable magnetic wiring to help improve the accuracy of drilling.
"We want to reduce the amount of X-rays, the surgeon's time, the operating room time, the setup time, everything," team member Will Yarinsky told The Med Center News.
The device will require FDA approval before it can be used on humans.
"Our device prototype is being handed off to a new senior design team this year that I am TA'ing and my teammate Byung-Uk Kang is mentoring," Jackson said. "We are hoping they can improve on our prototype and possibly develop it as a start-up."
Jackson is applying to Ph.D. programs and will continue her education following her graduation with a masters degree from Rice in May.
"I love research and want to make a career out of it," she said. "I also love teaching and so a career in academia is something that interests me."
As she prepares for her graduation and continued education, Jackson eyes the 2020 season as one of the conference's favorites in her specialties, both indoor and outdoor.
"From a track standpoint, the coaches at Rice are incredibly kind and understanding. The track team is a very tight family and it makes balancing academics with athletics easier.
"The team members are also very invested in their academics as well and so we can all relate to each other, which is not something you see often at other athletic programs."
Players Mentioned
Sprints
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