Anupama Shah
Class of 2022
Candidate for MS-MPE/MBA Program
My name is Anupama Shah. I’m a PA native that is a first semester student in the joint MBA/MS-MPE program at Pitt. I graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology this past December with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and a minor in Industrial Design. At Georgia Tech, my senior design team attained a provisional patent for our novel low burden device to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). This innovation of ours also placed in the Top 5 of the department at the Georgia Tech Capstone Expo and got us to the semifinals of the InVenture Prize competition. I was also a part of a research team that developed supplemental speech therapy apps to assist patients with aphasia to maintain their progress.
Starting Out with Start-Ups
Hello! My name is Anupama Shah, and I’m a new student in the MBA/MS-MPE dual degree program. Biology has been my passion since I got an in-depth look into it during my first year in high school. The engineering component followed after, from several women-in-STEM programs that I attended before college. During my undergraduate career at Georgia Tech, I was able to really explore the field and do more of what I already started to love. The biomedical engineering curriculum itself involved many projects that mimic the design process actually used in research and development jobs in the industry. I got to develop a novel device of my own through our Capstone project that went on to compete in innovation competitions and has IP with my name. I was also involved for two years in a different research team that functioned similarly to a startup to create speech therapy apps for patients with aphasia.
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Figuring out what I wanted to do within the biomedical industry was much harder. Although, I knew what subjects in school I liked and disliked, finding a place where that was applied in an exciting way was difficult. A lot of the biomedical engineering careers that I have encountered were more about other aspects of the medical device industry, like the regulatory side or FDA testing. And while I am knowledgeable in these fields and I do enjoy working in them, these jobs did not feel like a dream job to me. The biomedical careers that directly involve research and development are interesting but they tend to represent only a fraction of the job opportunities in the field. I felt that I wanted something different than what they offered.
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It took me until the summer before my last semester, which was full of introspection, to realize what I wanted. I figured out that the reason I felt so lukewarm about all of these great opportunities was because I want to do a whole multitude of jobs. I want to work with regulatory and work on the research aspect. I did not want to specialize in one or two single areas and remain there for my entire career. Whenever I work in groups, I never stick to one role, like the coding specialist, or the calculations expert. Instead, I bounce around from role to role, working on different projects every time. For one phase of the project, I code. For the next phase, I work more on the analysis of the data. During the phase after, I might work on the construction of the actual device itself. This usually happens because I tend to assume a leadership position, in which I monitor overall progress and put my efforts into points on the project that need it most. I am at my happiest when I work on the same main project from a multitude of different angles.
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"The biomedical careers that directly involve research and development are interesting but they tend to represent only a fraction of the job opportunities in the field. I felt that I wanted something different than what they offered"
Because of this, I believe that my best fit career-wise falls under start-ups. In this setting, I will be able to switch roles much more easily than I would be able to in a more formalized corporate setting. However, start-ups also require business knowledge. This is my motivation in pursuing an MBA. I want to get an MBA to learn about the way businesses function more intimately than I would by just a cursory course or two. However, I also wanted to further enrich my biomedical engineering knowledge. This is why the dual degree MBA/MS-MPE program here at Pitt is a perfect fit for me. With this program, I am able to further develop the skills I learned at Georgia Tech while learning about the business side. It gives me a holistic view of the industry I want to work in, which is perfect for the specific role I want. This degree will expand my already variegated skill set and improve my chances at succeeding in a start-up environment. Getting an MBA alongside this MS-MPE will allow me to thrive in a job that makes me excited and works best with who I am.
