Mark Zander graduated from RWTH Aachen in Germany in 2020 and holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Post-undergrad, he specialised in medical engineering with a focus on cardiovascular engineering. During his studies, he also worked as a student research assistant at the Institute of Applied Medical Engineering (AME) in the Department of Cardiovascular Engineering (CVE) at RWTH Aachen. His research work included the design, testing and analysis of membrane oxygenators and blood pumps. After academic exchanges during his studies at the Technion Institute of Technology (Israel) and Politecnico di Milano (Italy), he wrote his master’s thesis at Monash University (Australia) on the topic of experimental flow analysis in membrane oxygenators. In September 2020, he joined the Product Development Group Zurich (ETH Zurich) and the BRCCH-supported CoVent project as a PhD student. He is driven by the desire to gain a deeper understanding of pathophysiological lung diseases in order to improve the outcome of mechanical ventilation treatments for patients.