2/10/2010
MatSE junior Jonathan Naber was selected as a finalist for the $30,000 Lemelson MIT-Illinois Student Prize. Naber has developed an affordable prosthetic arm for people in underdeveloped countries with the help of his team, Illini Prosthetics Team. Putting aside his initial focus to make a state-of-the-art prosthetic arm with electronic components, he has created an arm from recycled materials that is extremely functional, durable and easily manufactured. In his development of this product, he will travel to Guatemala this summer to field test the prototype at a prosthetics clinic. Naber is currently creating a plan to start a production facility in a developing east African nation that will supply prosthetic arms to amputee populations in Sierra Leone and Liberia.