The ICA group in Milan. Photo courtesy Kristine Mulhorn.
What do a biomedical engineering major, a business major and a psychology major have in common? These Drexel University students all went to the Winter Paralympic Games in Italy in February 2026 through an interdisciplinary course and showcased an adaptive device created at Drexel University.
The unique experience was part of a special Drexel program, Intensive Courses Abroad (ICA), that enables students to complete an international academic experience in a short period of time, often connected to a timely event and international partner. For this course, Drexel Spring Break in Italy: Paralympics and Disability Sports in the 21st Century, Kristine Mulhorn, PhD, department head and clinical professor of health administration in the Bennett S. LeBow College of Business, and Nyree Dardarian, EdD, assistant clinical professor in the Nutrition Sciences Department of the College of Nursing and Health Professions, led the trip of 10 students to Italy. While abroad, students attended the Games, connected with students at the Politecnico di Milano, also known as the Polytechnic University of Milan, and distributed CaneBuddy, a device that attaches to a mobility cane for those with visual impairments.
CaneBuddy was created by Sriram Balasubramanian, PhD, professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering and Science in the Nick Howley College of Engineering and Computing. Balasubramanian and Mulhorn met during a faculty meet-and-greet as the former Salus University merged into Drexel. He was a guest lecturer in a class Mulhorn teaches on ethics and disability and later connected as Mulhorn was preparing for the ICA. As they discussed disability in sports and biomechanics, Balasubramanian shared his latest invention: the CaneBuddy, a 3D-printed device that snaps onto a mobility cane for people with vision loss to make it easier to handle the cane in social settings or while traveling.
“About three years ago, I became legally blind, and I started using the cane more frequently,” Balasubramanian said. “I realized, I’m holding the cane in one hand and now I need to hold onto other things, so what do I do with my cane? Sometimes I fold it down, but I’ve broken a couple of canes by stepping on them or somebody kicking them away.”
The CaneBuddy went through about a dozen designs with a senior design group in the School of Biomedical Engineering before its final iteration — a snap-on piece that can hook to a belt, bag or other loop to help people navigate hands-free when they need to without breaking the cane down. Now it comes in multiple sizes and can also hold a flashlight, which is something that most people with a visual impairment carry around daily, Balasubramanian said.
Balasubramanian and his son and daughter have been producing and distributing them for free, along with doing outreach to local Bureaus for the Blind and Visual Services, but the ICA trip was the first time CaneBuddy went global. Balasubramanian created information cards for students to give out so interested people could scan and learn more, request a CaneBuddy for themselves or provide feedback.
Students practiced talking points about asking people about their daily challenges or access issues and were directed to look for anybody who could benefit from having their own CaneBuddy. Sydney Denmark, a MBA student from the LeBow College of Business, who works at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, noticed a man with a mobility cane and was able to connect and give CaneBuddy to him.
“Funny enough, he was from Pennsylvania, but had family in Italy he was visiting. He was very nice and his family was supportive and excited to find out we were from Drexel,” Denmark said. “He was really excited about the potential use of CaneBuddy because he said he was always dropping his cane.”
The connection was a good example of the trip’s focus on athletics and access. The first half concentrated on the Games themselves and the second half looked more at research, biomechanics and human performance with students and faculty at Politecnico di Milano.
“The trip had both observation of the Games and reflection, as well as hands-on activities in human performance,” Mulhorn said. “My research is focused on disability and aging, so I'm naturally interdisciplinary, but to me, disability is one of those topics that could be applied to almost anything, like aging. It's not something that is only for one discipline. These are both growing populations and we expect more students from across various disciplines will be interested in the lived experience of people with disability.”
Mulhorn and Dardarian have plenty of experience taking students abroad; Mulhorn even took students to the Summer Paralympic Games in London in 2012. The faculty members first connected over Mulhorn’s background in health administration and Dardarian’s in sports nutrition to develop the ICA, which included both undergraduate and graduate students. Dardarian, who was interested in sports nutrition for para-athletes, felt that the mix of experience added depth to the presentations and discussions that would not have otherwise come up.
“Two of the biomedical engineering students want to work with disabled students and develop prosthetics, while one of the MBA students is a ski instructor who has observed a wide variety of disabilities and neurodivergent needs,” Mulhorn said. “I was happy to bring that disability studies perspective and awareness to these students who will be in the health professions, which is part of my personal aspiration for this kind of work.”
The gold medal match in men's wheelchair curling. Photo courtesy Kristine Mulhorn.
The experience at the actual Games was breathtaking. Dragons attended a couple different events, including two gold medal games: men’s wheelchair curling and the gold medal hockey match, in which Team USA beat Team Canada ( Team USA won all three gold medals in hockey at the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games). They also saw alpine skiing on the Dolomite Mountains, which were ever-present even in town. It felt surreal to several members of the trip to witness the Paralympics torch right in front of them while eating lunch in town (with Paralympic Games signs and advertisements everywhere).
“After the Games, we followed up with three days of lectures, immersion and education, but the experiential piece was just out of this world,” Dardarian said. “You cannot replicate it and an opportunity like this does not come around too often. Dr. Mulhorn saw this and grabbed it, and it was really life-changing for all of us.”
Once at Politecnico di Milano, the ICA group visited the Italian institution’s Sports and Human Performance Lab to learn more about how the athletes they just saw can do what they do. Dardarian said the lab’s research aligns strongly with research happening at Drexel about the biomechanics of sport, like how swimming performance is impacted by different arm movements.
The 4D simulator at Politecnico di Milano. Photo courtesy Sydney Denmark.
A 4D simulator for various athletic situations was a high point for all attendees, Denmark included, but it was far from the only device they learned about. Doctoral students acted as their liaisons, led them around campus to show different labs and explained their research. The Dragons heard from many speakers, including a former Paralympian athlete turned doctoral student in bioengineering whose experience has motivated his work. He showed prosthetics he’s created for running and daily use and shared the story behind the development and political challenges of distribution in areas affected by war.
“We were talking a lot about access and how to get children involved in sports and having adaptive equipment on site,” Denmark said. “Say you’re interested in sled hockey, but what’s the resource to get involved? There was a lot of interesting big picture stuff that was relevant. Access has always been a cool topic to me and giving people opportunities to take part in these kinds of events is where I want to be.”
The group flew back to Philadelphia inspired by what they’d seen, both from the athletes on the slopes and various other frozen surfaces and from the research and outreach happening in Politecnico di Milano’s labs. Dardarian saw how the connections with local athletes bolstered their research, drawing a connection to outreach that could be done at Drexel, while Mulhorn felt inspired by watching athletes perform and researchers talk about their experiences, like the former Paralympian who has created prosthetics.
“It was really powerful, and a part of what we do in disability studies is make sure that students hear in those classrooms the lived experience of disability,” Mulhorn said. “to have one of the speakers, which I didn't even plan, live with a disability and show his work that clearly motivated by his experience that that to me topped it all off for as one of the highlights.”