Engineering Career Conversations Podcast

Christa Downey: Welcome to the Engineering Career Conversations. I’m Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University. Traci Nathans-Kelly: And I’m Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you. Christa Downey: So, Jason, it’s so good to have you here today. Jason Wright: Yeah, thanks for having me. Christa Downey: Awesome. Let’s start by just telling the listeners about your current work. Jason Wright: Yeah, so I work at a company called Synchron. It’s a brain-computer interface startup based out of Brooklyn, New York. We’re developing an implantable system for people with severe paralysis, like people living with ALS, for example, who have lost some or all of their critical motor functions. The main goal is to restore their ability to interact with digital devices, right? So instead of physically tapping on a screen, if you’ve lost that ability, you can generate those control events by thought alone. So you think about something like tapping your foot or moving your leg to generate that control signal. That then enhances their ability to do things like communicate with loved ones, caregivers, medical professionals, or to perform activities of daily living, things like checking email, shopping, banking, Netflix, that sort of thing that otherwise becomes so much more difficult when you’re living with paralysis. So the overall goal is to provide autonomy, enhance quality of life for those individuals, and Synchrons got a kind of unique approach to that problem. We’re going with a minimally invasive strategy. So rather than put electronics in the brain, we use blood vessels that sit just outside the brain as kind of the natural highways of information to capture the neural signal. We also are leveraging a lot of existing technology that’s been out in the medical world for many decades. So our surgical procedure, the design of our implant, it looks a lot like cardiac stint procedures and pacemakers, which have been around for many years and are known to be safe and effective. That’s kind of the company in a nutshell. And my role within Synchron is mainly focused on our implantable electronics. We have a component that gets implanted in the chest, which is connected up to electrodes in those blood vessels outside the brain through a lead. It’s got a rechargeable battery and a bluetooth antenna, and its job is primarily to amplify and filter that neural signal that’s coming in through that lead and then transmit it outside the body. So I’m very focused on the design and development of that chest implant and how it integrates into our larger product, which includes external components and software applications, things of that nature. Christa Downey: It’s such important work. So talk to us more about what does your day today look like? Jason Wright: Yeah, so my role is really kind of a hybrid of hardware engineering, firmware engineering and systems engineering to some degree. Some of my days are mainly spent in the lab, working at the bench, things like prototyping circuits or testing that functionality. Some are spent more on CAD. Some are spent kind of purely as a firmware engineer, where I’m writing code that runs on the implant, and kind of the nature of a startup is typically wearing many hats like that. We’ve got a pretty big team. We’ve got outside partners, too. So a lot of the times, you know, my job can look more like systems integration where the challenge is getting all these different parts to work together and smoothing out issues that come up. I would also say, typically for a startup, there’s not always a clear division between design and manufacturing. So at a larger company, you might have a setup where you have engineers that are kind of purely working on design and then handing off their designs to another team. But at a startup like ours, almost every engineer has some interaction with the manufacturing side. So for me, that’s meant many days on site at our manufacturing partner as well, thinking through how our manufacturing processes and test procedures are going to work out. Christa Downey: Excellent. So what’s the most significant challenge you faced in your work? Jason Wright: Yeah, my mind actually goes to my previous job. So Synchron is my second medical device startup adventure. And in my first company, we faced a junction where we had a product out in the field that patients were using, and we wanted to release an updated version of that product, kind of a next gen system. And while developing that, we encountered a number of issues during development and eventually kind of realized we needed to try a pretty fundamentally new approach. Essentially like a redesign of the redesign. And yeah, it’s obviously pretty painful to do that. So just weighing the pros and cons of that as a team, that was pretty gut wrenching. Kind of felt like trying to predict the future. You know, you’re a year or two out from development and trying to assess what’s going to be the least risky path that leads to the best product at the end of the day. So I think a lesson I took away from that it’s really up to engineers to be advocates. There’s always going to be pressure from the business side to get things done quickly to go with the shortest, most economical path. And, you know, very often, that is the right answer, but if it’s not, it’s really up to the engineers that have the technical knowledge to be the best equipped to see that and to be the ones to push for it. Something that is definitely not easy. Stress kind of soft skills in the workplace, but absolutely needed. Christa Downey: So I’m thinking this work sounds fascinating. And there are going to be a number of our engineering students who listen to this and think, Oh, I want to get involved in something like that. That’s so cool. So what might be a path? What are some particular majors or, you know, can you speak to maybe graduate programs or experiences that students might, you know, aim for to try if they wanted to get themselves either, not necessarily in your position, but on a team like yours doing that type of important work? Jason Wright: Yeah. So I did ECE undergrad and stayed for my M.Eng. at Cornell. And I remember when picking a major, you know, hearing one of the talking points for ECE being that, you know, it’s a very flexible field and gives you the ability to kind of transition, move in many different areas because you’re starting out with this pretty broad base of technical knowledge, and you’re gaining a lot of skills that are really, highly employable. And I feel like my personal career journey really lived up to that. It took a couple of years for me to discover the world of neurotech and medical devices, and I think ECE prepared me well for making that transition, kind of discovering I have that interest in being able to work at a place like Synchron even without, you know, having studied neuroscience or biomedical engineering because I have the skills to make a valuable contribution, and then learn the other stuff, you know, in the field in the workplace. I think looking back on my time at Cornell. I’m really happy with that major choice. At the same time, I do wish I explored it a little more and kind of found that possibility earlier too, maybe taking some classes in different departments, could have accelerated things a little bit. I think also undergrad research is something to look into. It’s interesting, like, the way the academic job market has changed. If you’re looking at, you know, potentially doing a PhD down the road. You know, when I was an undergrad, it was, I think, seen more as a route towards academia and tenure track positions and now in bringing in computer interfaces and neurotech broadly. You see a lot of PhDs working in the industry, and, you know, in a way, where that PhD gave them a solid technical background and let them jump into a really interesting career that involves a lot of scientific contributions as well as, you know, real life, like product development as well. Christa Downey: This feels like an obvious question, but let’s just talk a little bit about how your work contributes to a healthier, more equitable, more sustainable world. Jason Wright: Yeah. At Synchron we’re not trying to develop a cure. We’re not trying to solve ALS. We’re developing assistive technology, and to me, that is a really strong equity issue. We have smartphones that are by and large designed for able bodied people. As you know, our world continues to move more and more communication and just daily life into the digital realm, it’s just so important that assistive technologies ensure that people with physical disabilities aren’t left behind. And obviously, Synchron is not the only company working on that. There’s many different approaches, including lower tech solutions, as well. But, you know, as we have more and more digital communication that need to be, like, technologically equipped to be able to communicate in a quick and rich manner is just so, so important. Christa Downey: Yes. That is important. Thank you. So then what other people and organizations are important collaborators towards this brighter future? Who does your organization collaborate with? Jason Wright: So there’s a lot that comes from academia in brain-computer interfaces, you know, in particular, a lot of the companies out there, Synchron and other folks in the field, you know, are building on innovation that was developed at universities and research labs over the last, you know, two plus decades. And we still have, you know, constant academic collaboration along the way. And, you know, I mentioned trying to leverage a lot of existing medical technology, and what’s been huge for us is having development partners and manufacturers who are really well equipped, have been making implants for decades. Especially as a startup, we couldn’t invent all that from scratch. It’s a huge undertaking to develop a Class 3 medical device and go through FDA approval. So we rely heavily on a big industry that has been doing this for many, many decades. Christa Downey: Yeah. And what ways do you anticipate AI impacting your work or your industry in the future, your field. Jason Wright: I would say that for Synchron and brain-computer interfaces and even assistive technology generally, it’s so helpful, if you think about someone living with paralysis, trying to fill in the gap between their limited ability to control inputs and trying to form rich communication, right? So if you think about trying to type a sentence using an eye tracker, it’s like a really common assistive technology where, you know, you’re using your eye gaze to, you know, focus on a letter on a keyboard and gradually type out a sentence that way. It works most of the time, but it’s very slow. That can be okay if you’re trying to write, yes or no or help or glass of water, please, or something like that, but it really inhibits your ability to express yourself and communicate nuanced thoughts and you know, so users of eyerackers rely pretty heavily on, like, predictive text, right? So you don’t have to type out every character of every word. And I think AI has the potential to help bridge that gap between, you know, simple slow sentences and more rich nuanced thoughts, even if it’s just, you know, suggesting, Hey, you might be trying to, you know, express this thought, you know, fill in some of that gap. And then, yeah, on the engineering side, I think AI is definitely already impacting the field. If you’re writing code, you’re probably already using AI tools to maximize your productivity or at least you should be. I don’t know if it’s really hit electrical engineering in the same way quite yet, but I think that’s coming and I’m pretty optimistic that AI will not replace engineers, but it will definitely change their job function, probably force more specialization as AI tools kind of provide this baseline of knowledge and capability. It’s going to press engineers to focus on one area where they can contribute on top of that. Be that, you know, through a subject matter expert that can find the gaps of AI or even working on AI tool development itself. Christa Downey: Yeah. So many possibilities. I can see how that is really going to move things along more quickly with your work. Yeah. Wonderful. Okay, so what do you wish you knew when you were a sophomore? Jason Wright: Definitely a lot of things. I certainly wish I had more contacts, like in industry, like, people to talk to about what life after college would be like, what the working world is like, or what it could be like. So I I hope this podcast series is helping in that regard. And yeah, like I mentioned, I wish I explored a little bit more outside my department. I was kind of more aware of other, you know, classes that, you know, even if it’s not, you’re taking the knowledge from that class and directly applying it to a career, just exposing yourself to other ideas and different career paths. I certainly remember how hard it was choosing a major and even thinking about getting a job after graduation. So I don’t think I would try to solve that, but just expose yourself to as much as you can, and get a sense of what’s out there. Christa Downey: I love that you say that. So the primary thing that we were aiming to do with this podcast when we started out was to expose students to some different possibilities and, you know, share the stories and experiences of alumni who are doing really exciting work like you are. And then we realized as we were figuring out the format that what made sense to us was showing students what it looks like to do an informational interview. If a student were to reach out to you or to another alum because they find you on the Internet and they think, Oh, you know, on LinkedIn, probably. And they think, Wow, this is such a fascinating career path. Want to get some time with that person, I want to chat with them or they meet someone in real life and want some additional time to go through and learn a little bit more about what they’re doing. The types of questions we are asking are the types of questions that a sophomore or junior might ask an alum who’s doing something that they’re curious about. So we’re trying to role model that, and it is our hope that more students will become comfortable with reaching out to alumni and learning about their experiences. Yeah, absolutely. Jason Wright: Yeah, that’s huge. Christa Downey: Good. Well, thank you. What class or classes had the greatest impact in preparing you for your career? Jason Wright: I think for ECE alumni, there’s probably only one correct answer. That’s 4760 formerly taught by Professor Bruce Land. And that’s just, you know, it’s a class where you’re forced to get a working solution, kind of, by any means necessary, right? So, like many classes, you’re taught concepts, and you apply them during the exam. But ultimately, like, the professor, or the course material has given you like, all the tools to ace that. But in 4760 and other project-driven type of courses, you’ve got some of the tools and some of it you just have to figure out on your own or as a team. And that is really what the working world is about. That kind of describes just about every engineering job. There’s not necessarily going to be one correct solution. It’s just a matter of finding the best solution that you can deliver and making choices along the way without 100% certainty. Christa Downey: I appreciate you reinforcing that message, as well. Okay. So a little bit of a fun round. What do you do to relax, have fun, and re-energize? Jason Wright: Yeah, I love sports and music, staying active, I’m really into tennis and basketball and love playing piano. Jazz pianos kind of my go-to to relax and unwind. Christa Downey: What’s one place you go for information to stay current in your work? Jason Wright: Hmm. I would I would shout out the iFixit Teardown blog. I’ve always been a huge fan of that. I remember reading it in college and still to this day. I think, stuff like that, just seeing how products out there get made, electronic devices. You can learn a ton about what’s industry standard, you know, what tools, what chips are people using? And what does engineering look like in practice? You know, the smartphone is the culmination of many years of engineering, and it’s really exciting and interesting to see the end result. Christa Downey: Okay, final question. If you were not doing this work right now, what would you be doing? And which is closest to what you dreamed of when you were a child? Jason Wright: Yeah, it’s kind of a tough question. But I remember when I was in middle school and high school, I wanted to study political science and then run for Congress. That was, like, my life plan. And obviously, I didn’t do that. But still to this day, I think it’s definitely a viable path for engineers to go into communication, law, government, that sort of thing. I really wish we had more people with science and engineering backgrounds in government. I think we have a really dire need for policies that are advancing technical innovation, recognizing, you know, the role of science and technology in society and dealing with stuff like climate change and pandemics and AI. So yeah, if weren’t doing that, if I weren’t doing what I do now, that’s probably where I’d be or where I’d try to be. Christa Downey: Excellent. We could have a whole other podcast conversation about that. I love it. So you have a long career ahead of you if you choose it, and I, you know, could see this in your future. That’s amazing. I’ll be following you, following your path and seeing what happens with that. That would be great. Jason Wright: I appreciate that. Thanks so much. Christa Downey: Yeah, thank you so much for your time. You’re doing important work. I appreciate that. And I appreciate you taking time away from that to speak with us and share your story. Thank you for listening. If you are enjoying these conversations, please follow, rate, and review on your favorite platform. Join us for the next episode where we will be celebrating excellence and innovation among engineers whose impact contributes to a healthier, more equitable and more sustainable world.

Christa Downey: Welcome to the Engineering Career Conversations. I’m Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University. Traci Nathans-Kelly: And I’m Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you. Christa Downey: Today, we’re joined by Daniel Morgan, a research portfolio manager for Mission Cure. This is a patient research organization dedicated to finding therapies for chronic pancreatitis. Daniel shares how his research background helps his team make informed decisions about allocating research dollars to discovering life altering therapies for this painful, rare disease with no cure. Traci Nathans-Kelly: Daniel, thank you so much for being with us today. We always like to start with our guests asking about where are you now and what are you doing? So can you fill us in on the context of where you’re working right now? Daniel Morgan: Yeah, my pleasure to be here. So right now, I am the research portfolio manager for Mission Cure, and Mission Cure is a nonprofit using an impact investment model to improve outcomes for pancreatitis, ultimately going for a cure. And essentially, this means the money used on these projects are invested on an outcome basis, and profit is more of a secondary priority for these things. Chronic pancreatitis is a devastating disease. It affects the pancreas, which is responsible for both insulin and digestive enzymes. Without it, you become diabetic and need to take replacement enzymes before every meal. Its characteristic symptom is really, really intense pain and many claim this to be the worst pain someone can feel. My role as the portfolio manager means I’m in charge of finding new partners for chronic pancreatitis research and accelerating the science toward patient use. This means a lot of different things ranging from helping to recruit for clinical trials to even developing a wearable device to better track and understand symptoms of the disease. Christa Downey: I love it. How did you get there? Daniel Morgan: I actually interned for them in high school back in 2017, and we stayed in contact. Traci Nathans-Kelly: Oh, wow. Daniel Morgan: So when they asked if I wanted to work for them part time during my masters, I said, Are you looking for a full time scientist? And they said, Yes. So, you know, they did a brief interview, and I’m back with them now, and I’m loving it. Christa Downey: I’m so glad to hear that. So you’re a scientist with a lot of interaction with clients and people in general. Can you tell us more about your day today? Daniel Morgan: Yeah, totally. The day to day looks very different depending on what projects have more urgent needs than others depending on deadlines. Sometimes I’m looking for new partners through surveying scientific papers, pitching to life sciences companies to take on pancreatitis, or attending conferences to present or see new research. Right now actually, I’m working on submitting an abstract to the Digestive Disease Week conference on clinical trials that have already occurred for chronic pancreatitis and recurrent acute pancreatitis. This will be very helpful in proving the viability of how we can approach clinical trials for these diseases and different endpoints that can be used for measuring interventions’ usefulness. Yeah, so I’m looking forward to seeing that go through. Traci Nathans-Kelly: It sounds like so many different factors have to come into play, right, to make a set of successful practices. And so we ask everybody, like, what’s a significant challenge that you faced at work? And how did you overcome it? It sounds like you’re doing that well, but walk us through an example, maybe. Daniel Morgan: Definitely. So I’ve been here for about a year now, and early on into starting here, there was a change in management, which meant I was taking on more responsibilities in my role, which was both exciting but also a little nerve wracking since this is my first full time job out of education. And I didn’t want to make too many mistakes. You know, a little nervous. But I stuck close by with the CEO who has been working at this for a couple of years and continuously asking questions before making mistakes, I think, has led me to be able to excel in this role and continue to improve with the more projects I take on. Traci Nathans-Kelly: I appreciate your point about not being afraid to ask questions, right? I think so many people think they just have to know or figure it out on their own. Daniel Morgan: Yeah, and taking over large projects, it’s a lot of project management, making sure that people are on track and hitting their milestones. Definitely had some experience at Cornell, but working with both small and large biotech companies, it’s very different and you need to understand there will be different responsibilities, different levels of information that they’ll give you to be able to actually make an impact, and making sure that you’re not stepping on too many toes is also important. Traci Nathans-Kelly: That’s a great point. Christa Downey: So in the day today, I mean, certainly, so you mentioned some of these challenges with relationships and the skills needed. Can you talk more about the skill sets that you’re using in this role? Daniel Morgan: Yeah, so for project management specifically? Christa Downey: Across General, right, like when you talk about investments, I think, you know, are you doing using some financial knowledge and skills? Or are you using more the scientific, you know, knowledge and skills? And then, yes, project management. Daniel Morgan: There’s a something I’ve really enjoyed in this role is the combination of needing to understand the science and being able to parse out what is you know, maybe a little more exaggerated versus what is legit? What is actually going to be the difference maker in this field. And I’ve definitely learned that through Cornell, many classes having us analyze different research papers that one would expect to be very professional, but there are ways to figure out that, the overlapping error bars makes you less confident or the way that this molecule interacts with other parts of the body might make it not suitable for a cure. And also being people-facing and using my people skills is very important as well because not everyone I interact with is a PhD in the pancreas. I need to work out how to best explain to them why something might be better than a different molecule and really work on listening so that I can best tailor the work that I’m doing to them. Christa Downey: Yes. Excellent. So then I started to think about so many students across the board and BME, in particular, you know, ask about, do I need an M.Eng.? How does that help me? What does that look like? Can you speak to that? Daniel Morgan: Yeah, I think the M.Eng, was great for me. Specifically Professor ed Faria’s class, innovation and design of biomedical technologies, was very helpful in learning the ins and outs of taking a molecule or a device from start to finish. What do you need to hit? What do you need to take into account? Different stakeholders, different payers, and ensuring that everyone’s on board so it can actually get to market and actually help the people it needs to help. Traci Nathans-Kelly: So it sounds like you have so many partners and collaborators. So will you talk to us more about which people or organizations, you know, you hold in that collaboration environment that you have? Daniel Morgan: I think the most important has to be the patients. This is all for them, so we want them along our side and closest to us. But beyond them, we also work closely with academics across the country, actually across the world, from India to Denmark to Alabama. We are finding the professionals and try to rope them into our community to create something bigger. But something that’s really important for further collaboration is working closely with life sciences companies. And this is because funding is a major issue in rare disease research. There’s just never enough and many academics are not geared towards creating a business out of their science. They’ll take it to the clinical trial stage and then have to pass it off. But if there’s no one to pass it off to, it’ll start collecting dust, even if it is a good cure. So by working closer with life sciences companies, convincing them to take on pancreatitis, getting more investors willing to fund these projects, we’ll be able to get closer to a cure. Christa Downey: This is such an interesting model, and you know, I’m not sure how common this type of model is if this exists everywhere, and I’m just not familiar. I’m fascinated. You know, I guess I never spent a lot of time thinking about this as a possibility, and I work with so many students interested in healthcare. And so I’m just thinking through if I have a student who listens to this podcast perhaps and comes to chat with me more or who doesn’t, and they’re wondering about how to get involved, how to make an impact with a particular disease, perhaps, but I guess could be anything in healthcare, maybe beyond you know, what are some possibilities? Like, what does that look like? What does it look like for someone to maybe get a similar position to you, or, you know, what it might look like from here? What are some other roles in this field? Can you talk more about just this space in general? Daniel Morgan: Yeah. So I think academics, the training is very important. Getting both the understanding of the sciences side of things, but also understanding the business regulatory works, the background that you don’t always hear about is important to focus on. But also, if there is an organ you’re interested in, a disease that you’re interested in, there might be a nonprofit associated with that. And a lot of these places, including Mission Cure takes interns every year. I just had two lovely interns, Julian Morales and Lisa Colbert from the CUNY system. And they really helped me put together work, the research on the clinical trials actually because it’s all unstructured data. It was so much to parse through. There were huge helps with that. And I kept them involved in every single thing I did. So they were able to basically be my understudy, and I think that helped them and they’re definitely ready to take on a position similar to mine if they chose to. So I think looking for non profit, many of them do pay as well. So if that’s a concern, you can be getting a salary for this as an intern. And that’s definitely a way to pursue both this people facing but science-y side of the STEM career path. Traci Nathans-Kelly: I love the shout out to your interns. Daniel Morgan: Yeah, they’re awesome, so I had to. Traci Nathans-Kelly: That’s a wonderful wonderful thing to note when you can also be so proud of your interns as an organization, that’s really a remarkable thing. Daniel Morgan: Yeah. It was definitely a great experience taking on the leadership role of working alongside them, educating them, but also learning from them, too. Traci Nathans-Kelly: Right? All those fresh perspectives that they walk in the door with. Daniel Morgan: Exactly. Traci Nathans-Kelly: So I just came out of teaching a class 10 minutes before we logged on here, and we were talking about AI. For us, specifically, it was about presentations, but AI in general, became the conversation for several different things. But we were wondering, also, how is AI having an impact in the space where you work? Daniel Morgan: Yeah. It’s definitely early stages. It’s still in development, needs to be improved. And aside from climate concerns and energy impact, I’m really looking forward to the way it can contribute to this field. I think it’ll be huge for finding new potential molecules because AI will be much faster than I could ever be at looking up what these molecules interact with, their mechanism of action, and how they could potentially treat the disease. So that would just give us probably hundreds of new targets to pursue. And work with new collaborators to get it into market. We like to take multiple shots on goal and this would be the perfect path to increase our shots. Traci Nathans-Kelly: I like that explanation. Multiple shots to get on goal. That’s a great description of that. Might steal it from you, Daniel. Daniel Morgan: Please do. Traci Nathans-Kelly: So also one of the things that we like to ask is that you dial back to being sophomore. And because that’s the year where you start to get a good sense of, you know, which kind of engineering you might want to do. And most students at the end of their sophomore years matriculate into one of the majors. And so with that in mind, what do you wish you knew that you can send out into the world right now as a sophomore? Daniel Morgan: I think it can be difficult to see and know at first, but there are so many different ways to use an engineering degree. At its core, an engineering degree helps you become a better problem solver, and that’s what I try to do day to day, figure out how we can best solve the problem of pancreatitis. I used to think that the only way to use an engineering degree would be working at a research bench or get a PhD, and I’ve been proven wrong, and I’m really enjoying this alternative path, not to say that I might get a PhD later in life, but as of now, I’m enjoying this interacting with patients, people. I feel like I’m really making an impact. They’re very appreciative and we’re taking these steps together. Still using the critical thinking and problem analysis skills I gained from my biological engineering degree, reshaping the approach that we’re taking to cure this disease. Christa Downey: I love this. I can’t wait to tell students about this example. And, you know, I don’t know that I’ve spoken with any other alumni who are doing this type of work, and I think a lot of people would be interested, so it’s exciting. Okay, so again, back to when you were a student thinking back to when you were a student, what class or classes had the greatest impact in preparing you for your career? Daniel Morgan: Mm hmm. I already touched on Professor de Faria’s class, so I won’t repeat that, but two other classes that come to mind would be Professor Datta’s Heat and Mass Transfer in Biological Engineering, which is very niche and might only apply to you if you’re a bio engineering major. But also Professor Brito’s Advanced Microbiome Engineering class. Starting with Professor Datta’s class, he really taught us how to break down problems into their most basic pieces, which really helps me every day in determining how to achieve the best outcomes for any problem. Break it down to the building blocks, tackle each one individually, and it all comes together to be a great end result. Then in Professor Brito’s class, this is really where I think I learned how to be appropriately skeptical of scientific work, which is immensely helpful to me determining which projects need to be prioritized. Traci Nathans-Kelly: I love that phrase appropriately skeptical. Right? Like, that’s the scientific method down to its basic, down to its skeleton. That’s really wonderful. And what wonderful professors to be able to work with? Christa Downey: Yeah. Traci Nathans-Kelly: So I mean, you’re absolutely out there in the mix of everything as it’s developing, right? And so how do you keep on top of things? Where do you get information that keeps you the most current? Daniel Morgan: Yeah, it’s really convenient, actually. You can set up alerts from different sources from Google to PubMed and more, and they’ll send you emails with the new science or mentions of keywords like PRSS1 is one of the genes that can contribute to pancreatitis. I have an alert set up for that, but also just even pancreatitis and chronic pancreatitis, I have alerts set up for. And so every other week or so, I go through the news articles, the new research papers posted, and determine if they’re relevant, depending on stage of research, credibility, and its results, determining how to prioritize it. Traci Nathans-Kelly: That’s really cool. I need to learn to set up more alerts for myself. I have a few, but I need to do more. Daniel Morgan: It’s worth it. Christa Downey: Yeah, great way to organize things and to keep track of things that is relevant. Students could be using that for their career exploration as well, you know, as they’re thinking about what they’re interested in. Yeah, fantastic. So, Daniel, what do you do to relax, have fun, and re-energize? Daniel Morgan: Well, I love to cook with friends and family. You know, science and engineering can be so exact a lot of the time, and it’s nice to have an activity where going off script can actually make things better. And, you know, even with that, I do try to incorporate this attitude into my own work, analyze things from different perspectives of stakeholders. It’s important to understand, you know, needs of patients, but also researchers, investors, and anyone else who’s involved to ensure that this cure actually gets to patients in the best way possible. Christa Downey: Excellent. This is fantastic. I really appreciate your time, and I truly am excited to share this story with students. Thank you. Daniel Morgan: Glad to join. Traci Nathans-Kelly: Absolutely. Thank you for your time today. It’s been really great to explore some of these, like Christa said, we need to fold in more BME students along the way, but this has been a wonderful window into not only a specific disease that you’re trying to cure, but also a very specific, right, the nonprofit part of it, which is something that is well, so many organizations work this way hand in hand with research organizations and for profit entities, as you said. And so it’s really this intersection has been interesting for us to explore. Thank you. Daniel Morgan: Thank you. Christa Downey: Thank you for listening. If you are enjoying these conversations, please follow, rate, and review on your favorite platform. Join us for the next episode where we will be celebrating excellence and innovation among engineers whose impact contributes to a healthier, more equitable and more sustainable world.

Christa Downey: Welcome to the Engineering Career Conversations. I’m Christa Downey, Director of the Engineering Career Center at Cornell University. Traci Nathans-Kelly: And I’m Traci Nathans-Kelly, Director of the Engineering Communications Program. We are excited to bring you this forum where we will host lively conversations that we hope will inspire you. We had the delightful experience of interviewing Gigi Boehringer, class of 2018 ISST major. She currently works for Amazon Web Services as a senior technical product manager. Her time at Cornell was full of amazing classes and supportive professors, engaged project teams, and she was on the university sailing team too. We hope that you enjoy learning about her fascinating work at AWS and how her Cornell experience shaped that work. Christa Downey: Good to have you here today. Maybe start by telling us more about your current work. Gigi Boehringer: Yeah. So, currently, I am a senior product manager at Amazon Web Services. I am a technical product manager, which means that I work directly on one of the AWS services. As for me, currently, it’s a one particular product that I own called Amazon Workspaces Core. It’s a third party integration API for virtual desktops. So AWS, I think, about ten years ago, released Amazon Workspaces, which is a fully managed virtual desktop offering. And a couple of years ago, we released what I call a baby out of it, that is the everything, but I call it like the Lego head of the virtual desktops. So not only are you able to have fully managed desktops through AWS, but now you can bring whatever your preferred virtual desktop offering is, whether that’s Citrix or Horizon 8 or Workspot, Leostream, a few others that are third parties that are very similar to our native offering, but you can run that third party on top of the back end and the managed APIs that AWS offers. So at times, it can be very technical. At times, we’re very go to market focused because it is a newer product. So as a PM, it’s a balance between the two, at this point in time. But normally the PM role that I’m in would be almost entirely focused on just the product features and development. Traci Nathans-Kelly: I really find it interesting because so many of our students want to become product managers, just like what you’re doing. I mean, they talk about it constantly. And so I think it would be super helpful for them to get a view of, like, what I don’t know if there is such a thing as a normal day, but what does a day look like for you trying to balance all these demands? Gigi Boehringer: Yeah, so I think that’s the root of what being a product manager is balancing all the different pieces more than it is just one skill set. So a normal day as a PM at AWS consists of meeting with your engineering teams, meeting with legal potentially on some sort of new licensing thing you might be working on, leading or meeting with your business development and go to market team if it’s a newer product and seeing how that’s going. Um, for me, because my product integrates with other technology providers, I meet with at least one of them every single day to talk about our integration and talk about features that they need in order to offer the end customer what the customers asking for, but also features that maybe could be improved on that already exists today. And so it’s a range, definitely. Some people say being a PM is like being a mini CEO. I think of it sometimes as kind of like herding cats. Like, everybody is going in the same direction generally, but there’s a lot of competing tension between all the different PMs, especially at a company like AWS, where there’s about ten of us focused on this larger orgs product, making sure that engineering is able to prioritize and keep moving forward on the pieces that impact your features. But then also as a team, lately it’s been in addition to that roadmapping for 2025. And so you get to work with those other PMs, but simultaneously, want to make sure that your features that you’ve identified are the ones that are moving forward. Traci Nathans-Kelly: Thank you for that. So as a PM, do you typically just look forward, nine, 12, 18, 36 months? How does that work out for you? Gigi Boehringer: It depends on the company. At AWS, specifically, we really like to only set a roadmap for nine to 12 months out, and it’s constantly changing. Some companies that maybe are smaller are looking at an even shorter duration because it’s very much meant to be a reactive, “We have a customer asking for something. We can do it in a few weeks. Let’s get it out.”, and then you’re able to onboard that new customer to your product. For AWS, we have kind of a massive backlog of requests from customers because we have so many. And so a lot of times we are ranking things based on how many customers have asked for something, and it’s a version of if you’ve heard of RICE scoring, that’s what we use. So it’s partially a judgment call and product sense call, but then partially using the data that we’ve collected from those customers to plan ahead. I think what’s interesting, particularly about the way AWS does it is right now, we’re planning for the first half of 2025. And we’re making a long list that we are currently ranking and people are kind of pitching each other on why we should be ranking one thing over another, with the data that we’ve collected. But then at some point, there’s a cut off on that list, and it might be number 45 out of 65 that we’ve listed for the first half of next year, and those items then can be considered for the second half of next year with the, you know, understanding that a lot of things do kind of extend out longer than you might expect when you are solving new problems with the engineers. So it’s definitely an interesting time, but it’s what I’ve been told is it’s a peculiar process. I’ve only ever been a PM at AWS, but I think the fact that it is quite malleable throughout the year, based on customer needs is peculiar to us, and one of the ways that we stay customer obsessed is kind of our slogans. It’s quite fun, but definitely ever changing. Christa Downey: Excellent. Great opportunity. What’s been the most significant challenge you faced in your work, and how did you overcome it? Gigi Boehringer: Yeah, so I think for me, the most significant challenge has been helping launch this new product over the past few years and making sure we are continuously iterating on the initial idea of the product and how we could continue to bring it to life over the next five to ten years, because it’s not a product that’s going to be exactly the same the day it’s launched. A lot of times all of the larger tech companies are releasing something, and they call it minimum lovable product, minimum viable product. But the idea is that you have a lot of room to grow into being more loved than minimum. And so we have all these we have a laundry list of features that different partners have requested. We’ve seen the way that customers have interacted with it now in production environments and are now getting really good data on how to improve the product. So it is truly an enterprise grade product that more customers can launch into their production environments without necessarily needing us to be right alongside them and kind of get that flywheel going of onboarding that comes with a little bit of time and love. Traci Nathans-Kelly: You all are pulled in a lot of different directions. With all the best, with really great outcome. I like your word malleable there for, you know, like how responsive you are to what the customers are asking for. And so I just kind of wanted to link that up to how does this work then? Going through all of these phases and all this input, what do you do as a team to keep contributing to a healthier or sustainable, more equitable sort of workspace or outcome or product features, whatever it might be. How do you frame that up with AWS? Gigi Boehringer: Yeah, I think when it comes to the root of it all, having the customer be the absolute primary focus helps a lot with how equitable it is when maybe you’re going through that healthy tension of trying to figure out which features to do next, but also the idea that those customers are giving us a lot of feedback on how things are going. And so we all are tasked with listening to the customers, and it’s not necessarily an environment of one person has an idea, they run with it. They get to be the star. It’s more like, I don’t really care where the idea comes from. I just want the customers to be happy. And I just want to see that positive feedback. And so I think having a lot of people on that same page focused on the end goal being the customer and not necessarily other potential variables to focus on, you end up with a much more equitable environment because of the way that the customer’s driving the decision making versus it being personal decisions. So it’s very data driven. I love it. I love the level of data data driven decisions that are being made because it makes it much more clear and concise and it’s less about preference and it’s more about, well the data is saying this, so we’re going to move forward here. And it’s easier to, I think, put everything on the table, and people are not looking at you for your idea. They’re looking at your writing and your data that you brought to the table to make the decision on whether or not it’s the best path forward. Christa Downey: Can you give a little more insight into what people and organizations are important collaborators for the work that you do? Gigi Boehringer: Yeah, so it’s pretty amazing. I don’t, it’s hard, I think, at times, to understand how large the organizations are, especially at AWS on the service team side. It’s truly amazing how many people we have focusing on different pieces of these products. And my product is not even close to being one of the largest ones at the company. But the collaboration comes from, right? We have solutions architects that are speaking to customers every day, understanding their feedback, helping them solve problems, helping them solve around their own requirements within the customer’s organization for maybe IT requirements that have been put in place that might be old, might be new, might be based on, you know, concerns, security wise, or it might be based on the way that networking was done 15 years ago, and they just haven’t been updated. You do have to work within those bounds. So those solutions architects are the forefront of all customer facing interactions. They work with account managers and sales teams, but they truly are meant to be a technical advisor to the customer. They are one of the best places to get customer feedback because they can speak to me about what they’re hearing. They can have opinions because they see lots of different customers, not just one person that they’re speaking to for the product use, um they also are able to then share with the customer what’s happening on the service team side and what they’ve been told on the roadmap. And it builds this relationship bridge, the customer that makes a really big impact, I think, on the level of trust that we earn. So I think solutions architects are one that I collaborate with every single day, and I talk to them on Slack every single day. In addition to that, it’s my business development team, so I have two that are focused on my product alone. And so they are like, business partners to me, and we’re talking about onboarding either new managed service partners or we’re talking about customer feedback that they heard during some maybe executive level conversation. In addition to that, we have sales specialists that own the entire orgs products that they sell, and they get a lot of feedback from the field as well in a slightly more sales focused way than from the solutions architects. And then once you go inside of the actual service team, that’s when you have engineering and within engineering project managers and program managers that are, you know, seasoned in ways that only I can continue to work towards being because, you know, I am earlier in my career than a lot of people. But they have really, I think, strong sense of product sense and judgment when it comes to the way that, you know, either launches have gone based on the way that we’re sharing this pricing with a customer or based on just engineering hiccups that can happen and delay things. And the way that I should be communicating that to customers, they’re really helpful. In addition to solving problems that I really lean on them to help me solve with new feature ideas. So the collaboration spans, I think, quite a range of types of people and types of backgrounds, but it all feeds into this kind of flywheel of feature development that I try to keep pushing forward for my product. Christa Downey: So, Tracy mentioned we have so many students who expressed an interest in this work. I’m not sure how many of them fully know what they’re getting into when they say this on paper, maybe it makes sense or maybe they manage a product here on campus. And as I hear you speak, I’m reminded of how much responsibility you have and how much you’re working with people who have so much depth of knowledge and experience in their particular field. And so I’m curious to know what prepared you for this level of responsibility and coordination? And what might you recommend for others, either to build up that type of experience or to evaluate, you know, whether or not this is a good fit for them? What would you say to that? Gigi Boehringer: Yeah, so I think one of one of my favorite experiences, especially at Cornell was being on a project team. It was something that when I was 5-years-old, I wanted to do at Cornell. It was something that when I got to Cornell, I was excited to do the when the chance, when it was time, to start looking into that. And it really did help, I think, build those muscles with communicating with different types of engineers around me and different types of people around me in a way that was very collaborative and mission driven on a singular a path towards success. It was very clear where we all wanted to go, but we all had very different brains with different experiences, maybe different internship experiences as well that we’re bringing to the table. And it was, I think, one of the best things that I did just to build those muscles early on. I was able to be business development lead for Cornell Hyperloop junior year, and then I was team late of Cornell Hyperloop senior year with two close friends. And we each had very different skill sets, but the management experience of the people and of engineers that we knew as we had gone through during freshman sophomore, junior year, how difficult it can be at times, going into senior year, you’re a little more comfortable. But understanding the workload and understanding the balance that everyone was trying to keep. And so the people management skills, I think, were really developed in that type of situation where you’re trying to take into account that people have, you know, this big life that they’re living and your team’s goal is just one piece of a lot going on in everybody’s life. Oh, so I think that helped a lot with just interacting with different types of people and understanding the way that product development can occur through agile workflows. And that was helpful, especially when I started interviewing at different companies. I also think internship experience helped a lot going into the full time work. I interned at an AppDev agency my sophomore year, and then interned at a block chain financial technology company going into senior year and spend junior summer up at Cornell. And through those internships, plus Hyperloop it felt like I had a pretty clear picture of what I wanted to do and knew the skills I needed to keep building in order to do it. And so that, for me, I think, was really helpful in understanding. I wanted to do maybe an APM program, the associate product manager programs at a tech company, if possible, after senior year of college. But I ended up really falling in love with the solutions architect role during my internship summer at R3, the distributed ledger finance platform. And I thought, Okay, I’m going to do this. This is what I want to do. And so I was lucky enough AWS had a program at the time for Solutions Architect entry level roles where you would do training program and then get placed on a team. So I did that, and as a solutions architect, I really leaned into being as deep as possible on the technology, knowing that every year after college, it’s harder to stay as deep as you were when your only job was to learn about new technology. And so I really leaned into that. I loved it. And then when the opportunity surfaced to move over to product manager, that was the time I was like, Okay, I did the work. I understand the role. It’s going to be really hard, and it was really hard to transition, but all the different experiences balanced out, I think a lot of skills that were needed. So I could really focus on the tactical PM work that I needed to learn when I moved over to the product manager role. Traci Nathans-Kelly: So many moving pieces, right? And so, of course, we’re asking this of everybody as of late, but what about AI? What’s going on with your work is AI having an effect there at all right now? Gigi Boehringer: Yeah, I think with my work, the way that it’s having effect is it’s definitely of interest. It definitely gets a lot more marketing budget towards it at any tech company right now. The question is, how can you use it and be effective and how can it truly make an impact on the customer? And so ways that we’ve looked into doing that, and I think we just released it a few weeks ago was partnering our product with other AWS products that are AI focused, like Amazon Q developer, which is, like, a chat bot to help you code. Where you can ask it to build snippets for you or larger code bases, and it will give you drafts that you can then use. And so I think that’s a really good example of it’s not necessarily replacing anyone, but it is making it a lot easier if you’re not as adept at some pieces of code or if you want to learn more or are pushing yourself more into an area that maybe you don’t have the schooling in or haven’t you know, you’re spending a couple days researching it before being able to do it. This is a tool that can help you get moving a little bit faster, save some time. A handful of cycles of getting errors, and it’s something that as our product moves forward, we say, Okay, well, maybe this is something people might want offered inside a desktop. And maybe this is something that we can integrate with in that format and not just have it be a paired sales offering. Um, so I think there’s a lot of room for play there. I love the democratization of artificial intelligence, tooling and the way that every company right now is looking to, you know, ride this wave of excitement and benefit from it and also, you know, bring it to a larger audience in a way that, you know, when we were in college, we were learning about it, we were using it, but we weren’t necessarily talking to our friends that were in other colleges on campus about it. And so now it’s definitely a level of democratization that I think is going to help everyone and is a lot of fun to play around with. Christa Downey: What do you wish you knew when you were a sophomore? Gigi Boehringer: So when I was a sophomore, I was trying to figure out still not well how to balance being on the varsity sailing team and being in engineering, seeing how freshman year went, which was not easy for me. I, you know, I struggled many times throughout my engineering career. And I think that for me, I just wish that I had used every resource possible. I think a lot of times, it’s a hard tension, especially as a student athlete to get to practice and be at practice all afternoon and schedule your classes around it, and then go to morning workout and not fall asleep during class after waking up at 5:00 A.M. For workout. Right. It’s a hard balance, and it’s a hard balance. It’s very different than being an athlete in high school. So for me, I just wish that I think I had trusted that I could do it all. But instead of prioritizing practice every day, maybe prioritize office hours a little bit more and use those tools on campus to make sure that I was really getting the most out of my studies as a strong base for the future that I would then have to pay for by making sure I studied more by not going to it. So I think for me, I came in really prioritizing trying to do both perfectly, and I ended up slipping. And so prioritizing time on campus with professors that are amazing, and with office hours, with friends and TAs that are so helpful, being in that environment is the most important thing you can do while you’re on campus. Athletics it feels really important, but for me, I think it quickly was clear that engineering was my future profession and not being an Olympic sailor. So, once I accepted that, then it was time to move towards engineering a little bit more and sailing a little bit less. But I think it’s a really hard balance, and it’s hard to be a freshman and a sophomore on any team when you’re you’re trying to figure out where you fit in. You’re trying to figure out what your future looks like in this sport. Maybe it is something that you want to take full on after college. And those years feel really important to see whether or not you’re going to be able to do that. But there’s nothing better truly than the friends and the hard work that pays off in engineering school. I think it’s just such a special environment that I loved soaking in once I made that reprioritization. Traci Nathans-Kelly: Like you, I had a first year that was a little bit rough, so I completely identify with that memory. Absolutely. So thinking back to all of that, you were just mentioning the professors and making friends and doing all these things together. Are there any classes in particular that you enjoy not necessarily even engineering, but something else that you absolutely enjoyed and would recommend? Gigi Boehringer: Yeah, actually I would say all my favorite classes were definitely in engineering. I really enjoyed rapid prototyping. I think that was senior year. We made a cocktail making robot for our final project, which was a real hit at parties afterwards and lived a good life until it was left on the sidewalk in College Ave for the garbage trucks to pick up. But that was a really, really fun class that I think expanded the hands on work in engineering that being an engineering Infosci major did not give me and was kind of something from growing up that was the reason why I wanted to be an engineer in the first place. I also really enjoyed what was it? Text Mining in Python with I think it was with Mimno, Professor Mimno. And then he had one other course that I really enjoyed, which is a data visualization course. Um, I really think though junior and senior year, every class is just so much fun. And that’s the best part of college. All those classes where you feel like you’re starting to dive in, it’s actually not as hard as you thought because you have a good base, and you can just lean into learning a lot of really cool things and really take advantage of all the resources engineering school has to offer. There’s not a lot of places like it when it comes to the level of resources given to students, for project teams, for research labs, the devotion to the, I think, the diversity and offerings in engineering school really is just so special. It’s amazing. Christa Downey: I love the picture that you’re painting. You know, how to prioritize, how to piece this together, how to make sense of all that’s available and the possibilities here. I think students will appreciate this. We now have sort of a fun or speed round, and the first question is, where do you go for information to stay current in your work? Gigi Boehringer: Honestly, internal resources, I think there’s a lot of really cool service teams at AWS that I don’t get to hang out with every day and don’t get to work with that I love. But also, I’m actually a host on AWS on Air, which is a Twitch channel that we have. And during those sessions, that’s where I learn the most. So on Fridays, we interview product managers that have released a new product in the past week or two, and I get to ask them all the stupid questions I ever want for the sake of everyone else, of course, and not myself. Um, and so we get to do a live streamed Twitch episode on Fridays where we just learn about new cool technology. And it’s like my favorite format. It’s so much fun. We get viewers interacting in the chat, asking questions for their own AWS environments, and it’s just such, I think, a pleasant way to consume new technology information. I could read, but my eyes staring at a computer for another couple hours during the day is unlikely at this point in time, as they get worse with age, but I can watch a twitch live stream about new technology any day. Live demos are amazing and so much fun, and you really feel connected to, like, either that feature or that product at that PM worked much longer than probably anyone knows on getting out, which is cool. Christa Downey: Excellent. Is that an internal channel? Gigi Boehringer: It’s external audience. Yes, you should absolutely share it with your audience. It’s external. It’s on Twitch. We’re on the AWS main Twitch channel, and then also AWS on air, which is featured on Twitch, YouTube, sometimes LinkedIn and other social platforms. Christa Downey: Great. We’ll have to get that link from you. Thank you. Traci Nathans-Kelly: Yeah. And if you weren’t doing this work, now, you said early on, you were already thinking about project teams when you were five. Gigi Boehringer: Yes. Traci Nathans-Kelly: But what else was in the mix when you were a kid that you thought you might pursue? Gigi Boehringer: So there was a strong pull towards chemical engineering that was quickly redirected by my grades in chemistry for engineers in freshman year. So there was a strong pull towards that. I loved chemistry in high school. I loved AP Chem. I just I was really enjoyable for me. So that was one. I did have a dream for a while of going to the Olympics for sailing that has not happened, but I’m so excited for all the people that showed up at the Olympics this year for the sailors. It’s just so awesome to see the US sailing team doing really well. Seeing familiar faces from college athletics and growing up. That’s just amazing. What else? 1 second. Let me think. I can think of something. Probably the last one would be something within the mechanical engineering range. The focus was engineering, and it wasn’t necessarily anything else. So, it was always going to be engineering. It just was which kind. And for me, I really ended up enjoying the balance of the operations research with the computer science classes that at the time ISST offered. Traci Nathans-Kelly: Really great. Great combination, right? Gigi Boehringer: It is. Yeah, it’s been really helpful, actually, in my career, which is amazing that I found a path that at the time, felt kind of hard to identify, but it worked out the way it’s supposed to, as it always does. And I think if I could spend more time hosting live streaming or TV shows or something, that is, like, a newfound passion that I just love it so much. So we shall see in time. Christa Downey: Excellent. Good. I look forward to following along. So, along those lines, hosting TV shows, sailing, building robots. Tell us what you do these days to relax, have fun, or re energize. Gigi Boehringer: Yeah, so these days, outside of work, I have gotten into the classic college athlete looking for endurance sports to fill the need. So I’ve been, I guess, dipping my toe into triathlons, which has been a lot of fun as a very different world that I had to retake swim lessons because I had no idea how to swim laps the way that I might have on swim team when I was ten, and learned how to ride a bike in a way that is, like, true road cycling and not just around the neighborhood. So it’s been a lot of fun to lean into. I ski a lot and try to get out into mountains whenever I can, outside of New York City just to get a little bit of reprieve from the pace of the city. And then I also spend a lot of my time doing charity work through the New York Junior League. And so that’s something that I’m really passionate about. I’m on the fundraising side, and it just brings me a lot of joy to support different charities in New York City that are focused on women and children. Christa Downey: That’s great. Thank you so much, Gigi, for joining us today. We really appreciate your time and insights. Thank you for listening. If you are enjoying these conversations, please follow, rate, and review on your favorite platform. Join us for the next episode where we will be celebrating excellence and innovation among engineers whose impact contributes to a healthier, more equitable and more sustainable world.