Third place and audience DMEA spark Award winner
We are pleased to announce and acknowledge the achievements of our recent Master’s graduate, Laura Michnick, at the DMEA sparks Award 2026. The DMEA sparks Award recognises practice-oriented bachelor’s and master’s theses in the fields of medical informatics, e-health, health economics, and related digital health disciplines. Each year, it highlights emerging scientific work with strong practical relevance and innovative contributions to digital healthcare.
Laura delivered a phenomenal performance and was recognised with two awards this year:
- 1st Place: Audience Award
- 3rd Place: DMEA sparks Award (Master category)
Her Master’s thesis, “Development of a Surface Electromyographically Controlled Functional Electrical Stimulation System for Selective Elicitation of Hand Movements”, was successfully tested in healthy participants and provides a foundation for future studies and potential therapeutic applications in spinal cord injury and stroke rehabilitation.
The work was conducted at the n-squared lab. We also thank Yannick Finck for his supervision and support throughout the project. We look forward to seeing the continued impact of your work in the field of rehabilitation.
Congratulations to all other winners
We also congratulate all other prize winners and finalists for their impressive achievements. In the Bachelor category, Fabian Bürki from Bern University of Applied Sciences was awarded first place for developing an interoperable openEHR prototype, while Christian Franke, also from Bern University of Applied Sciences, achieved third place with his work on the integration of data for high-cost medications.
The Master category featured equally strong competition. Pascal Hansen from Heidelberg University received first place for his research on online planning systems for autonomous robotic surgery, and Mona Irsfeld from the University of Lübeck was recognized with second place for her work on physics-based glioblastoma growth modeling.