Welcome to new staff member Giancarlo Beukes

Welcome to Giancarlo Beukes who was appointed recently as Senior Technical Officer for the Adrenaline Auto-Injector project in the Medical Devices Lab of the Division of Biomedical Engineering. Giancarlo did his undergraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pretoria. For his undergraduate final year research project, he developed and tested an external prosthetic knee joint. He has completed his MSc in Biomedical Engineering with Distinction from University of Cape Town.

His Master’s research involved the design, manufacturing and testing of a novel laxity measurement stress radiography device for knee joint ligament injury diagnosis – the Laxmeter. This device, along with his Medical Device Design project – the Paediatric Metered Dosage Inhaler (pMDI) have spun out into a commercialization opportunity, which he is currently pursuing. In addition, Giancarlo tutors the Medical Device Design course run by Dr Sudesh Sivarasu, focussing on facilitating students to design and develop medical devices that could potentially lead to start-up companies of their own and learning in the process. He was recently awarded and recognised as a UCT Inventor.

Outside of the academic sphere, he loves surfing, playing guitar, bouldering and spending time at the gym. He loves to try everything he possibly can, and enjoy life to the fullest. As inspired by Steve Barlett, he believes that we all have a choice to accept the responsibility to make a change in our lives - and change follows making a big decision and taking a small step forward.