#SoCaltech: Dennis Ko

"My partner Lisa [Yee, BS '10, an emergency medicine physician at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Centers in Fontana and Ontario, California] was telling me every day how she had to reuse her N95 mask and her face shield. I'd been reading online that a lot of people were 3-D printing their own face shields, and I thought, 'You know what? I'll just learn how to do it.' I talked to my adviser, Julia Kornfield, and she said, 'Even if you only print five face shields, that's five people you managed to help.' The NIH [National Institutes of Health] has a 3-D printing repository with user-submitted designs. We found one that was clinically reviewed, meaning you can take the shield on and off 10 times without it destructing or losing its quality, it keeps the user dry and is appropriately fitted. So I said, 'Let's just go for that one.' I ended up adapting that design and iterating it using CAD software based on feedback from Lisa and her colleagues. I think there was a total of 13 iterations; there was a huge learning curve. The first week, we had low expectations; we were just trying to print one face shield. It turned into a much bigger thing because we got better at it. Lisa found out that more people in her department and other colleagues at other facilities would need these, and it kind of evolved. Now, I have three printers going, and each can print two shields at a time. So, for a five-hour run, I get six shields, and it runs four times a day. We started doing this at the beginning of April, and to date I think we've made approximately 450 face shields."

Dennis Ko (MS '12) is pursuing his PhD in chemical engineering at Caltech. He is also a volunteer assistant women’s basketball coach for Caltech Athletics. Find out more about his face shield project at dennisko.com/faceshields.

#SoCaltech is an occasional series celebrating the diverse individuals who give Caltech its spirit of excellence, ambition, and ingenuity. Know someone we should profile? Send nominations to magazine@caltech.edu.