A Biocord Network Interview with Kraken
June 23 is International Women in Engineering Day. We at Biocord know that breaking stigmas and barriers is crucial to the development of fields. One of our very own moderators in the discord server, Kraken, is doing her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and I had the pleasure of interviewing her about her life in engineering and her take on the future of engineering. This is what she had to say!
Q: Who are you and what exactly do you study?
“I am a biomedical engineering Ph.D. candidate. I also have a cat named Kiwi who I love dearly, and I also enjoy weightlifting/working out, outreach for underrepresented populations in STEM, and backpack and camping when I am not in the lab!”
Q: What exactly does Biomedical Engineering encompass?
“Imagine if biology, medicine, and engineering came together. That is roughly what biomedical engineering would be. Biomedical engineering is a very large field and one area for example could be exploring medical devices. Someone in medical devices as a career could be a field engineer that is on the ground helping hospitals and laboratories with their equipment. Another option is someone that does research — what I do. A small example of what I do is mice work, or in vivo studies as they can also be called. Data analysis is also a big part of my day and the field as a whole.”
Q: What made you choose Biomedical Engineering?
“I have always been fascinated with medicine, but more specifically, developing solutions for medicine, not the public front like an MD would see. I was a competitive gymnast growing up and from the extensive physical activity, I have had osteoarthritis since 5th grade, and I looked up cartilage regeneration and found out what they did and I was horrified. I thought, maybe I would be the one to change this and that planted the seeds for my interest in biomedical engineering.”
Q: Why would you choose engineering over medicine?
“That thought came through to me as I came into high school. I did a veterinarian clinical internship and I found out during this that the front-facing aspects of medicine did not interest me. What I found out is I like to design and develop solutions and biomedical engineering was a more direct path to achieving that goal of designing medical equipment than an MD would have been for me.”
Q: As you grew up, did you and your friends share that interest in biomedical engineering? Or did you pave your own path?
“I went to an international school in Hong Kong that was very art-based. I was an art student for a little bit with my goals set on art, but after a few different tries and talking to my mom about it, I mentioned biomedical engineering and she loved it and so did I. Most of my friend group went into art, psychology, and criminology, and there were a few of my classmates in high school did go towards my route so not a lot of my friends from then are in my field.”
Q: Growing up in an art school, do you find that your arts background helps you in everyday life as a Biomedical Engineer?
“Oh, absolutely it does. Creativity is important in this field and in engineering and science as a whole. As a Ph.D. student, creating a dent in global knowledge is important to your growth as a Ph.D. student and scientist, and having that creative thinking process has helped me be successful in my Ph.D. career and as a scientist/engineer as a whole. Being able to think outside of the box is important as a biomedical engineer but also as a scientist.”
Q: What is your family dynamic in biomedical engineering and science in general?
“My family is very supportive. My mom said no to a few different careers but when I said biomedical engineering, she was open to it. My brother is also an engineer but my mom did her doctorate in accounting, something a little bit different than engineering and BioMed. In terms of what I do, I don’t know if my mom completely knows about what I do, but my brother does. They are supportive and think what I do is cool and exciting. And communicating the science to them has come easier to them the longer that I am in the field. I am learning what words to use to make it easier for people to understand what I do and words to make that communication barrier thinner and easier to cross.”
Q: What advice would you give to someone who is paving their own path and trying to communicate to their friends or family who might not know anything about engineering as a whole?
“It is not your obligation to make someone understand and sometimes people will not care what you do and won’t care to understand what you do. I used to have a whole paragraph to tell people but now I take it down to “I make muscles grow big” because you can’t make people understand. For paving your own path, finding mentors who have your best interests at the center of the mentorship and have the experience to give you unbiased and supportive advice has been helpful in my growth as a biomedical engineer. Also talking to people that are in the field you want to go into. It can be difficult having a majority of your family not in the same field so finding people that are encouraging and have gone through what you are going through is crucial to your success early on in biomedical engineering.”
Q: In terms of your workday, what are some typical problems you commonly face. How easy or hard is the troubleshooting for your field or for engineering as a whole?
“I have to troubleshoot a lot which can be a science and/or engineering thing depending on which day you choose. Figuring out why and how to make it work is the biggest question. I have pioneered new protocols and techniques for my lab and practicing those and mastering them for when I actually have to do them is important for that publication data to turn out right and you don’t waste your time on data that you need. There will always be troubleshooting and optimizing the techniques in the lab. Optimizing is something ingrained into me as an engineer. Currently, I am troubleshooting IHC for something different than what our lab is used to. The troubleshooting difficulty definitely varies from problem to problem. Like the IHC currently should be easier since we have an existing protocol. But it definitely varies based on the issue at hand.”
Q: What is the current dynamic in your field and for Engineering as a whole?
“Biomedical engineering is a recent development, unlike electrical and mechanical engineering. Because it is so new, the field is a lot more forgiving in reference to support and mental health and not as cutthroat in reference to my own experience in undergraduate studies where I went. There is a lot of collaboration in my field and it is hard to get a project to completion without collaboration. The field is a lot more supportive and also has a lot more representation compared to other engineering fields. There are also a lot more women in biomedical engineering and at Georgia Tech, if I remember correctly, we were 50:50 in male to female ratio compared to other fields being a bit more male-dominated. But biomedical engineering as a whole has more representation and is doing better in that sense I think.”
Q: As you get older, into your 30s and 40s, what is something you want to see more of in your field?
“I want to see better representation. Academia in general needs better representation and my field specifically isn’t as bad as other fields, but that is something I would like to see more of. Also going forward, a lot of biomedical engineering programs are geared towards medical school which can be upsetting to some people because what we do is different than what medical doctors do. I would like to see programs be more independent in their curriculum and give themselves a name for being an engineering program, not just biomed. I would also like to see a better understanding of my field. It can be hard to market yourself as a graduating student since it is still unclear in a lot of places what my field really does behind the scenes in the lab.”
Q: For young women going into engineering, what is some advice you could give to yourself at 16,17, or 18 years old as an aspiring engineer?
“Talk to some female engineers in the field you know or through Twitter or social media as a whole. Getting a view of what we do would have been priceless for me at that age. I would also tell myself to chill out. I used to be focused on trying to improve myself as engineering can be hard for women and we feel the need to prove ourselves. I know now that I am successful, and I am a great engineer. I would have absolutely told myself to chill out and that you will do great things and that you don’t need approval or recognition to be great at what you do.”
Q: Do you have any closing comments?
“Don’t be afraid to become the engineer that you are. I am different from my fellow engineers, and I am proud of that. I am happier being different and being me despite the notion of going with what is expected of me. I am me and I will stay me through my career and I am enjoying every minute of being in this field.”
I would like to thank Kraken for her time and insight into biomedical engineering and engineering as a whole as we celebrate Women in Engineering on this June 23rd. If you have any follow-up questions, please join us on our Discord Server where we have a channel for biomedical engineering and for career discussion where we love to talk about things like this and help each other develop and learn about new things.
