Danielle Martin: The Business of Bioengineering

Danielle Martin didn’t initially plan on joining a biomedical engineering department in graduate school.  After getting her bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from Clemson University, she wanted to move into the business world and get her MBA.  She hoped to find a specialty MBA program focused on the medical device/biotech space, though there were very few programs with that combined focus.  She eventually found out about the CMI MBA/MS joint program and immediately applied, stating that “I’d been interested medical devices, and the product/device focus sealed the decision”.

Once Danielle joined the CMI program, she found it to be not only rigorous and informative, but also flexible, with many opportunities to network and connect to outside initiatives.  She completed her classes on a flexible time-table due to her work schedule, while also interning at the Wallace H. Coulter foundation, a University of Pittsburgh program that helps fund the commercialization of university medical technologies.  In doing so, she got to work first-hand on taking technologies derived from basic research and converting them into technically and commercially viable medical products.

Since graduating in the spring of 2015, Danielle has been working as a product manager at Globix Medical, overseeing robotic solutions for spinal and orthopedic conditions.  The CMI program prepared her well for the many types of work that come with her position by having her go through the core curriculum of medical product ideation, development, and prototyping.  She described it as “like the real world experience, with exposure to and conversations with people who have worked in the field”.  She “highly recommends the program if you’re interested in medical devices; it’s the best professional MS to hone in on this market, and teaches a lot of information in a short time to directly prepare you for the real world”.