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Anne Dzuricky
 

Class of 2021

MS-MPE Program

Phillips Respironics Engineer

I was born and raised in Erie, PA and spent all my time taking art classes, being on the boat, or playing soccer. I went into Pitt undergrad thinking I was going to be pre-med, changing to explore research for 2 years, and finally landing a co-op at Philips Respironics. It was here that I found my perfect fit, where engineering meant creativity and innovation and making. After graduation, I pursued a career at Philips, and have now been working here for over a year!

Engineering Inspiring User-Centered Design

Let me paint you a picture: Anna Dzuricky is a 24-year-old female engineer working in a job she loves for an incredible company in the greater Pittsburgh area, looking for her next move, and feeling a little restless given the COVID-19 global pandemic situation. On any normal summer week, I would be packing my schedule with friend visits, camping trips, vacations abroad & to National Parks, Ultimate Frisbee games, work happy hours, and South Side bar hopping. However, similar to everyone else across the globe in the summer of 2020, I was spending more time than ever inside my house besides my runs and trips to the dog park. Whether it was the monotony of quarantine, or my coworkers constantly reminding me to “go back now or never”, I decided to really delve into my search for higher education.

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I had been considering graduate school for about half a year at this point, and really just couldn’t decide what it was that I wanted to go back to school for, given my many personal and professional interests. So, I looked into programs at many different universities ranging from MBA programs, to Industrial Design or Fine Arts, to Architecture or Anthropology, to Engineering Master’s programs. Nothing was really catching my eye because I felt like any of the programs I was looking into would be a great fit! It wasn’t until I was recommended a program at Pitt from a few coworkers, plus the Panther Pride I felt from going there in undergrad (H2P!), did I jump for a specific program – MPE. Before I met with an advisor to see if the program was truly a right fit for me, I decided to make a list of things I knew I was interested in, and wanted to learn more about. That list (in no particular order) was as follows:

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LinkedIn

Relevant Links

Youtube

User-Center Design

Human Factors

Engineering

Creativity &

The Art of Making

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Biomechanics &

Mechanical Design

Management &

Business

What I found after a quick conversation with the MPE program advisor, Dr. Gurleyik, was that this program was specifically catered to explore these things that I was so passionate about learning, and I would be able to complete it while working full-time!

           

 

 

As an undergraduate Pitt Bio-E student, I felt very fortunate for the many opportunities that I was able to take part in, from my co-op, to Design Hub, to classes like senior design, that all played a part in leading me to this kind of engineering. I was first exposed to human-centered design and the marriage between art and engineering (my two favorite subjects) pretty early on in my sophomore year where I led a design team for the Bioengineering club called Design Hub. Design Hub not only connected me to medical professionals who had real Bioengineering needs, but allowed me to participate on a cross-disciplinary team that had a real impact on patients’ experiences across 4 Pittsburgh hospitals. This project showed me that sewing my own clothes, drawing, and connecting to people could all be engineering skills I could use in my professional life. It also showed me how I could personally help people through creating.

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Despite all this, I really do have to say “hats off” to my co-op position at Philips Respironics (which extends to my current job) as the main contributor for where I find myself, today. My co-op and now full-time position in the Research Department where we focus on the design of CPAP masks, continue to shape my professional aspirations and ideas about engineering, to this day. Before my co-op, I was pretty set on attending medical school after graduation. Now, I can’t imagine doing anything else. My job has given me freedom to be creative, while teaching me that constraining a design not only helps to sell a better product but it often nurtures innovation instead of stifling it. I have learned skills like CAD modeling, 3D printing, compression & injection molding, lasering, facial scanning techniques, rapid prototyping, and team organization. I know more about common prototyping & production materials, wearables, documentation practices, and the importance of the design-prototype-test loop. I have been given the opportunity to see first-hand over and over again in external trials, how our designs can change a person’s experience with a medical device, and in turn change their life. This position has inspired me to want to explore even deeper into user-centered design with the purpose of designing better medical products, to help more people.

A question you may be asking yourself (and I definitely asked myself) is, “Why are you getting a degree in Medical Product Engineering if that is seemingly what you already do?””. Well, good question. Despite having a lot of exposure, personal interest, and passion for user-centered design and innovative engineering, I have really had very little formal training around these subjects. I was pretty upset, when I realized I wouldn’t be able to fit in Dr. Samosky’s Art of Making class in undergrad, or any human factors engineering class. I believe I have a lot to learn about the theory and practice of creating, and think the MPE program can offer me that in addition to the flexibility to explore other topics I am interested in like project management, or business. I am also eager to expand my network of connections, and explore different paths my career may take me on that perhaps I do not get exposed to in the industrial arena.

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Anne Dzuricky

To contact Anne, please feel to reach out by email: atd21@pitt.edu
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