Bio
Blynn Shideler grew up in Pittsburgh and managed a local Dunkin Donuts before starting college at Washington & Jefferson College. At Washington & Jefferson, he wrestled in the 2015 NCAA D-III national team championships and studied neurological movement disorders as a Magellan Scholar at the University of Paris. Blynn earned a B.A. in physics & French from Washington & Jefferson before enrolling in a dual degree program at Columbia University. At Columbia, Blynn sang for the Columbia Chamber Choir, volunteered in the Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital Emergency Department, and developed medical robotics with the Columbia Robotics & Rehabilitation Laboratory while pursuing a B.S. in biomedical engineering. Throughout his undergraduate studies, Blynn spent a summer as a visiting student at McGill University and completed several global research fellowships, including positions at Hangzhou Dianzi University and Victoria University of Melbourne, where he studied medical robotics and developed technologies for pediatric physical disabilities. Blynn is the lead inventor on multiple patent applications for assistive technologies to help children with movement disorders.
After graduating from Columbia in 2019, Blynn spent a year at the NIH Clinical Center’s Rehabilitation Medicine Department working on the NIH exoskeleton for pediatric cerebral palsy. During his year at NIH, Blynn also volunteered as the Varsity Wrestling Coach at Rockville High School. At Stanford, Blynn created the Pediatric Rehabilitation Technologies Program, a project funded by the FDA's Pediatric Device Consortium that develops assistive devices for individuals with physical impairments. Through this program, Blynn started a company called BUDI, an Apple Watch technology for remote physical therapy, and directs a clinical study at Stanford Children's Health using electrical stimulation to improve walking biomechanics. Blynn’s long-term goal in medicine is to pursue a career in pediatric surgery and continue developing medical devices for children with disabilities. In his free time, he enjoys walking dogs on Wag Walking and live-streaming Runescape on Twitch.
