From biofuels in the Bay Area to biomedical devices in Boulder, alumna Kristen (Potter) Bradley (ChemBioEngr ’10) has come full circle.
Bradley currently works at Medtronic’s (formerly Covidien) Tissue Research Lab in Boulder as a Development Engineer.
“We make vessel sealing devices for electrosurgical applications,” she explains. “There are a variety of vessel sealing LigaSure devices for both open and laparoscopic procedures; these LigaSure devices use a combination of pressure and Rf energy to create tissue fusion. I design and run studies to test the sealing capabilities of new devices during their development. This involves ex-vivo tissue work as well as in-vivo studies.”
As a student at CU, Bradley worked in the biomedical field. However, it took several years and career paths before she returned to her roots.
Upon graduating from CU in 2010, Bradley moved to San Francisco with then-boyfriend Russell Bradley (ChemEngr ’10), a fellow department alum who was taking a job at Chevron’s Richmond refinery. The job market was competitive, with most companies requesting more experienced applicants, and Bradley (Potter) could not find work in the field. Instead, she worked at an outdoor store.
“There were some perks, such as the free ski pass,” she remembers. “However, working a relatively monotonous minimum wage job definitely helped propel my search for work in my field.”
While most of the people she had known at CU had found jobs through contacts, she found a position at Aurora Algae through LinkedIn. The company made algae-derived biofuels, pharmaceuticals, neutraceuticals and feedstocks. As a Process Development Engineer, she was part of the team developing the process to take dried algae and convert if to an Omega-3 nutritional supplement.
“I was able to work on the process at every level, from wet chemistry lab work to scale-up to a pilot plant and contract manufacturing facility,” she states. “I was using a lot of the thermodynamics, fluids, separations and organic chemistry that I learned at CU.”
Despite enjoying her job, Bradley was still drawn to the biomedical device field and its potential to directly impact individuals. She also hoped to return to Colorado where she could more readily hike, run, rock climb and ski.
While studying at CU years earlier, Bradley had participated in internships at CaridianBCT and Covidien. These positions were vital in helping her realize her interest in R&D rather than manufacturing; they also helped in networking.
“One of the contacts I made during my internship at Covidien is the reason that I was able to get a full time job here 4 years later,” she says. “As a student I heard people talk about networking but did not realize how important it is to keep up professional relationships. My advice to students is to keep in contact with former colleagues, mentors and classmates because you never know where your career may head.”
When asked about other advice for students, Bradley quips, “Pay attention in stats class; it comes in a lot more handy than you might expect.”
She also advises students to enjoy all the little things they may miss when they leave CU. For her, these include late nights in the Borg computer lab with friends, trying to growE-coliin the old undergraduate lab, Professor Gill’s YouTube videos of traffic patterns as metaphors for biochemical iterations, and a huge snowball fight in the engineering quad.
Since moving back to Colorado in 2014, Bradley and Russell have gotten married and maintain a strict policy of no gory work stories at dinner. They have enjoyed adventures around the world, from skiing in Japan to kayaking Hawaii’s Nepali coast to scuba diving in Australia with alumnae Justine Roberts (ChemEngr PhD‘13).
In the future, Bradley would like to continue in the biomedical device field and begin managing junior engineers. She also plans to maintain her overriding goals of enjoying life and “feeling like I am making a difference – however small – in the world.”