Internships and Jobs

The mini-profiles below offer a few examples of the thousands of rewarding careers pursued by alumni of UIC’s undergraduate programs in biomedical engineering and bioinformatics.

Medical Student
UIC College of Medicine

Why study engineering? Engineering is incredibly fulfilling. You’re studying concepts and theories while also learning how to apply them in the real world. It’s a challenging field, but it teaches you how to approach problems systematically, deconstruct them, and develop novel solutions. The opportunity to study multiple things — materials science, physics, biochemistry, 3D design — and then bring them together is what kept me excited and motivated during my four years.

What about UIC prepared you for the world after college? At UIC, there was always a strong emphasis on team-based learning. So many of my classes — Clinical Problem Solving, Medical Technology, and Senior Design — focused on our ability to communicate and work effectively in groups. As a medical student, I find myself constantly using the skills I learned in those classes while working in interdisciplinary teams of doctors, other healthcare providers, and researchers.

Tell us more about what you learned from working in groups. We know that teams work more effectively and produce better results when members with different backgrounds and experiences have their voices heard. Whether it’s identifying issues with a product’s design or accessibility or catching the subtle biases that are present even in computer code, the value of diverse engineers cannot be understated.

Quality engineer
Cognizant Technology Solutions

Why did you choose a bioinformatics concentration for your biomedical engineering major? Studying bioinformatics allows you to leverage computational approaches to understand molecular and biological data. Bioinformatics is the perfect fit for anyone interested in addressing medical challenges using computer science. There is an enormous amount of research being done in this field, including efforts to personalize medicine. Learning bioinformatics will help you enhance the quality of treatment given to patients.

What work experience did you gain during college? Through the College of Engineering’s Guaranteed Paid Internship Program, I interned at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab. I performed speech signal processing using the SciPy library in Python to identify the pathological features of stroke patients with speech deficits. I was able to apply what I had learned in my classes to real-world projects. My research experience in UIC’s Center for Bioinformatics and Quantitative Biology also helped prepare me for the working world. I built my computer science, machine learning, and problem-solving skills. My coursework also included a plethora of projects that I still refer to. I am confident that I am successful in my current role because of the education I received at UIC.

Course recommendation: BME 530 Statistics and Machine Learning for Bioengineering and Bioinformatics. We analyzed and drew conclusions from various molecular, genetic, and clinical data. I loved finding meaning behind data by leveraging my skills in machine learning and statistics. The projects were directly related to medicine, and it felt incredibly impactful to take this course.

Human factors engineer
Medtronic

How did your major prepare you for the working world? UIC gave me my first true experiences working on interdisciplinary teams, learning about user-centered design, and immersing myself in the biomedical innovation process! The way they teach biomedical engineering at UIC is amazingly real: very practical, very patient-centric, with lots of opportunities to find your niche.

Favorite course: BME 496-497 Senior Design. That was where I felt ready to work on a capstone: to immerse myself in ideation, invention, and innovation in the context of engineering design, while learning to work and lead and follow in an interdisciplinary team. It was rewarding to see an idea to fruition and to learn from our successes as well as our failures.

The value of diversity: Diverse perspectives lead to broader, better inputs to any system. We’re all individuals with our own set of experiences, ideas, triumphs, and struggles. To bring your full self to work or school is so important to ensure no voice is left behind.

Looking back: I loved my time at UIC. It was such a rewarding college experience in the greatest city, where the lines between college and life were so uniquely blurred. I had no such expectations when I began, but now, looking back on how my perspective broadened and my worldview developed because of the people I met and the things I did, it all feels like it was meant to be!

Chief Technology Officer
HideIt Wearables

What’s great about your job? Being able to work on a problem that pops up during design and then apply the engineering process to come up with an awesome solution. Having something finally work after dedicating so many hours or days tackling it is the best feeling ever!

How do you hope your work will create positive change in the world? I hope my work will allow individuals with disabilities to seamlessly connect and interact with the digital world around them.

What was your favorite course? BME 431, a class dedicated to teaching you hands-on about electronic components and how they are used to build systems of devices.

Why did you choose UIC? UIC is a one-of-a-kind institution with a small-town feel where everyone is welcome to work with one another to tackle all issues presented. I chose UIC because it has the reputation of a top engineering school with all the assets available to guarantee success.

Research and Development Engineer
Abbott Laboratories

What’s great about your job? Getting to see the full scope of a project and the direct impact of the work.

What do you hope to be doing 10 years from now? I hope to continue advancing the technology of the medical-device industry and eliminate the problems and limitations of today.

Is there an aspect of studying in Chicago in particular that you feel benefited you? The ease of accessing a diverse set of resources was hugely beneficial.

What was your favorite course? My favorite course was Interdisciplinary Product Development.

Coolest thing you’ve done in the past year: I had an opportunity to travel to Barcelona to collaborate with a third party on development of a new medical instrument for Abbott.