For more than a year now Annie Cienian, a senior mechanical engineering major, has been working with Professors Steven Schmid and James Mason and the Zimmer Corporation to develop a minimally invasive hip implant. While her research has focused on the exothermic properties of the implant material, she hasalso performed finite element tests on the material. Here Annie and sophomore Kara Bucci are assembling implants for testing.

In addition to her work on campus, Annie spent her summer as an intern at Zimmer in Warsaw, Ind., one of the nation's largest manufacturers of orthopedic implants and fracture management products and a partner in this research.

For more information on minimally invasive orthopedic implant surgery, visit  http://www.nd.edu/~amebio/