THELAKER | 13 she enrolled in a multidisciplinary arts and sciences bachelor’s program at RIT. “As an undergrad, I really had a huge interest in the brain and intelligence. I was doing a project that involved, believe it or not, slime mold. Slime mold doesn't have a brain, yet it can solve complex puzzles, and people use slime mold to design, for example, the shortest path for railways. “I was doing a project to see if I could use slime mold against MapQuest and see which would make a better path for a bike path between RIT and the U of R. Spoiler alert, the slime mold won.” To get the slime mold to communicate the best path, she put food – a piece of an oat – in a location representing RIT and another a distance away to represent the University of Rochester. en, she recorded its trajectory from one snack to the next. Jade wanted to show the path visually with a 3D topographical map. at led to a conversation with a professor who was setting up a 3D printing lab. 3D printing is ideal for fabricating one-of-a-kind objects, such as a prosthetic limb that ts the contours of a patient’s body. “It was super intriguing because it put the arts and sciences together, and I was learning something that could be positively impactful on another person’s life,” she says. Jade’s focus on 3D printed prosthetic limbs led her to travel to Haiti in 2016 with the nonpro t LimbForge. e team provided prosthetics to those who had lost limbs following a 7.0 earthquake in 2010. She became team lead in 2017 and led several visits in 2017 and 2018. In 2017, she met Danie Exilus, who was tted with a prosthetic arm. e meeting began a years-long e ort to bring Danie and her family to America. Danie and her two daughters settled in Canandaigua earlier this year. Jade is now working to bring Danie’s husband and son to join them. Ripple effects Today, Jade is a research development specialist at the AMPrint Center and teaches a class in 3D printing and prosthetics. Danie inspires her current research to nd innovative ways to improve the design and safety of upper limb prosthetic sockets. She remains a champion of liberal arts, which gave her freedom to explore at FLCC. In her teens, Jade had not thought about college, and in early adulthood, her life took what she called “rough turns.” e victim of abuse, she recalls lying in an emergency room bed when a social worker gave her a business card and said, “You don’t have to live like this anymore.” Months later, Jade reached out to the social worker, who recommended college. Her sister, Nani Nehring Bliss, worked at FLCC, so Jade applied for admission and a scholarship. It was a small step with profound consequences. “I felt like all of the choices I had made in my life to that point had gotten me into the hospital, so I wanted to try to do things drastically di erent,” Jade says. “I threw myself into it, and I ended up getting another scholarship. e last scholarship that I got at FLCC was for the last year at FLCC and the rst year at a four-year college. I probably would not have thought to go to a four-year college without it. “Back in 2008, where I was in my life, if you would have told me that I would have my Ph.D. in mechanical and industrial engineering and be teaching students, I would have said, ‘No way.’” It’s not unlike chaos theory, in which small actions can have far-reaching results. As Jade says, “Don't underestimate the power of just making that one decision.” -Lenore Friend Jade Myers ’12 conducts research at Rochester Institute of Technology’s AMPrint Center to improve the design and safety of 3D-printed upper limb prosthetic sockets. PHOTO BY LENORE FRIEND Jade Myers sponsored Danie Exilus and her two daughters, Landine and Rayna, to travel to the U.S. from Haiti earlier this year. Jade was leading a team in 2017 to provide prosthetic limbs to victims of the 2010 Haitian earthquake when she met Danie, who had lost her left arm.
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