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i really think that we’ve opened up the young girls eyes to stem careers and really addressed that in the fundamental elementary school and middle school education of these girls to see that anything is possible there’s no such

thing as a gender-specific career anymore

i am responsible for the design and development of our products so our products are regulated by the FDA and other notified bodies which means we have specific rules and regulations that we have to follow when we design and develop those and that is all the responsibility of my team so when i was doing my research for my PhD

could use my engineering skills and background and i could apply it to products process and pharmaceuticals that are going to have an immediate impact on patients well i’d start off by saying we’ve come a long way when i look back at the pictures of myself in my engineering class at brown university there were very few women in that class when i went to duke and started my PhD there were a lot more women there but still not nowhere near a 50 margin so i like to see the number of women choosing stem careers so as a woman in a leadership position you know my advice to to younger women is find out the passion that drives you and build upon that so learn your own development style learn your own leadership style and decide what makes you happy when you can find that in your job all of the technical parts are going to come along with it and you’ll be able to really build upon that passion and grow into a leadership position

there of course you have to be technically strong if you want to be anything on the technical side in the

biopharmaceutical space i think that goes without saying but for me it really does come down to what i call

intellectual curiosity when they encounter something new or novel do they want to go learn about it

can they go find those experts or the books or the research and go learn about it

i had the privilege of being asked to lead a team that was working to bring a recalled product back to market so this

product was highly important to the industry and so it was important for the patient as well as for the company to

get the product back on the market we had a very aggressive timeline to do so our goal was 12 months to full approval

we did it in about 15 months to a fully approved device that was back on the market i love to read i was that kid in

elementary and middle school who had to be told put down your book while you eat breakfast i would prop it up behind the cereal bowl so that i could keep reading while i was eating breakfast so i’ve always loved to read so right now i’m reading the wright brothers by david mccullough i’m also reading the latest in the diana gabaldon series

i have three young kids five three and almost one so my weekends are theirs right now fortunately my kids love to read and will often just run over and say can you read me a book and we’ll sit down on the floor and read but we have spent a lot of time outside when we have some snow sledding in the hills around our house exploring with a lot of trails and outdoor space so we like to get outside when we can it’s great to to get that fresh air i have a wonderful husband who is an equal partner in this marriage and in this child raising i think that has also led to more women being successful in

stem is that the family dynamic has changed so on any given day do i feel like i can have it all no absolutely not i’m

probably sure that i am failing at something on any given day but overall yes it’s about priorities and you decide