Adrian Buganza Tepole
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
ADRIAN BUGANZA TEPOLE DIDN’T ALWAYS KNOW he wanted to be an engineer. Growing up in Mexico, he was equally drawn to literature and math, and seriously considered studying Spanish before his parents nudged him toward a more applied path. He landed in engineering, though it wasn’t love at first formula.
“Halfway through, I was like, oh, I don’t know if I like this, because it was too applied,” he said of his undergraduate years. Everything changed when a professor invited him to do research: “That completely changed my perspective. I really enjoyed the research part of engineering,” he said. From that point on, a doctorate became the goal.
Now an associate professor in computational biomechanics, Buganza Tepole embraces the label of “geeky or nerdy” and enjoys diving deep into complex technical conversations. His work sits at the intersection of mechanical engineering, medicine, and computational modeling. Rather than designing machines or structures, he applies mechanical simulation tools to human biology—most notably in the field of digital twins for breast reconstruction.
“Don't just connect with your peers, but also with people ahead in their career. For younger people in undergrad, this means interacting with professors, attending office hours, getting answers to homework questions, but also asking about career options to get an idea of what the future might look like.”
—Adrian Buganza Tepole
When he’s not working, there’s a good chance Adrian Buganza Tepole is out on his bike. A former road biking club member, he now treats cycling as a solo, meditative practice. “If I’m alone, all I need is a bike,” he said.
DIGITAL TWINS, FASTER
His lab creates highly personalized models based on MRIs, CT scans, and 3D imaging that simulate how tissue will behave after procedures like lumpectomies and mastectomies. These simulations help predict the cosmetic and structural outcomes of different surgical choices. “We know how much adipose versus glandular and fibrous tissue there is, where the tumor is, and then we can predict what the cosmetic outcome would be,” he explained.
It’s a time-intensive process. Creating a digital twin currently takes weeks—processing imaging data, building finite element models, and running hundreds of simulations to account for patient-specific variability. But Buganza Tepole is optimistic that this timeline can be dramatically shortened. “The idea is to be able to do it on the fly, you know, from a new MRI scan immediately get the model,” he said.
While it once felt like a distant goal, recent data and validation results have shifted his perspective. “Before, it always seemed kind of far away. But now I think that we actually could make it into something that is useful clinically,” he said. With more surgeon collaborators and robust training data, he hopes to turn these digital twins into real-time, decision-support tools that can help doctors choose the best course of action.
He’s especially proud of a recent paper comparing the predictions from his digital twins to real patient outcomes. “We made predictions and then compared against 3D photos taken from both pediatric patients and breast reconstruction patients after mastectomy,” he explained. “And our predictions were quite good.”
To get to where he is now, he’s had to master not only the mechanical and computational sides, but also biological processes like tissue remodeling, growth, and atrophy—phenomena that don’t apply to traditional engineering materials. “With cars or airplanes, you worry about whether something will break. Here, depending on how the tissues are loaded, they’ll change their properties. We have to model that, combining deformation and forces and stresses with how the tissues react over months,” he said.
Although he is currently finishing his role at Purdue University, Buganza Tepole will officially join Columbia University in New York City this summer, where he plans to further scale his research.
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