Global Engineer

A biomedical engineer for the world

Alumnus Adriana Velazquez Berumen delivered a call to (thoughtful) action at the Engineers Week Reception

By Robert L. Smith

As the top biomedical engineer at the World Health Organization (WHO), Adriana Velazquez Berumen, MS ’86, knows what medical devices can do. She has seen the innovations of biomedical engineers cure diseases and improve lives in communities and cultures around the world.

She also knows what tends to work best, and that it’s often simpler devices and therapies that are most effective.

So when she addressed the 2019 Engineers Week Reception at Case Western Reserve University Feb. 28, she delivered a call to action—but also a call for reflection.

Medical innovations like x-rays, dialysis and pacemakers changed the lives of millions, she said. But so did the stethoscope.

Velazquez Berumen, a native of Mexico City who earned her master’s degree in biomedical engineering from the Case School of Engineering, said medical devices need not be technological marvels to work wonders. It’s often enough, she said, that they are simple, safe and effective.

“Always put yourself in the place of the patient and the place of the healthcare worker who is trying to help that patient,” she told an audience sprinkled with aspiring biomedical engineers. “First listen, then help.”

She added that engineering knowledge must be sharpened with personal passion to bring about change, especially when the challenges are tall.

“You need passion to keep driving,” she said.

Her message fell on a receptive audience. The annual reception, the climax to Engineers Week activities, returned to campus for the first time in years, drawing more than 400 people to the ballroom of the Tinkham Veale University Center.

The night celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Department of Biomedical Engineering with the theme “Bridging Medicine and Healthcare.” So BME faculty were prominent and more than 50 BME students presented their research with exhibits and poster boards.

Velazquez Berumen flew in from Geneva, Switzerland, with her husband.

The couple’s son and daughter, recent college graduates working in America, met them in Cleveland for a family reunion rolled into a college homecoming.

She toured labs on Case Quad and met with student leaders, faculty and administrators. As she shared her story, they learned of an impactful career that almost did not happen.

Launched from Case

A young Adriana Velazquez knew she wanted to follow her father and her two grandfathers into engineering. But she also wanted to work in hospitals so that she could help patients and improve healthcare in developing nations like her native Mexico.

Her idealistic quest did not begin well. After graduating from the prestigious Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico in 1982 with a degree in biomedical engineering, a young Adriana Velazquez presented herself to one of the top private hospitals in Mexico City.

“They said, ‘A bio what? You cannot work here. Engineers are men,” she recalled in an interview with Case Alumnus.

So she flew north one January day, into winter like she had never imagined, to begin studying at the Case Institute of Technology. In University Circle, she met classmates and professors who would inspire her for life.

“I really went to a place with a lot of expertise,” she said. “It was so close to the hospitals and to the clinical environment. Case gave me many more tools to come back to Mexico and start to work.”

She returned to the same Mexico City hospital with a master’s degree and this time was greeted warmly.

She became an advisor to Mexico’s Ministry of Health, orchestrating better use of medical imaging technology, and was the founding director of her nation’s National Center for Health Technology Excellence.

From that position, she began collaborating with WHO, a United Nations’ agency that addresses international public health. In 2008, she joined WHO as a technical officer and rose to become one of its top engineers.

As Senior Advisor and Focal Point for Medical Devices, she has a global view of medical instruments and how they can be used most effectively in different nations and cultures.

Sometimes, she observes, it’s the simple technology that works wonders. For example, there’s a universal need for blood pressure monitoring devices that people can use themselves. Velazquez Berumen is excited about a smartphone app that measures blood pressure by the light of a mobile phone.

“People will say, ‘This is not big science.’ But making technology simpler can make a big difference,” she said.

“I am a big promoter of biomedical engineering because I firmly believe in it,” she added. “I don’t think that quality healthcare can be delivered without it.”

As rapid advances in technology change medicine, the biomedical engineer has become more critical, she argues.

“We know a little bit of everything. We know a little bit about medicine and a little bit about technology. We’re the ones who can explain to physicians the best use of the devices.”

Reconnecting with Case

Her work takes her to clinics and conferences around the world. In January 2017, she was attending a biomedical engineering conference in Kampala, Uganda, when she heard there was a Case team at the forum. Excited, she sought them out.

That’s how she met Andrew Rollins, PhD, a Case Professor of Biomedical Engineering. He said he saw a chance to invite to campus someone who knows the global impact of biomedical engineering.

“She’s right in the thick of it,” Rollins said.

The Kampala encounter resulted in her agreeing to address the 2019 Engineers Week Reception.

There, Velazquez Berumen closed her address by invoking the CWRU motto. “Let’s think beyond the possible,” she declared, “and together we can improve global health.” To comment on your classmate or on this story, send a letter to the editor or email

Robert.Smith@casealum.org.

Adriana Velazquez Berumen and Dean Venkataramanan Balakrishnan.

Adriana Velazquez Berumen told leaders of student engineering groups that engineering requires both passion and empathy.