#iAmBiomed to make a difference at the intersection of technology and medicine
Mahban's Biography
Mahban was born in Tehran, Iran in 1991 and moved to Ottawa, Canada in 2007. She started her undergraduate studies at uOttawa in Mechanical Engineering and did her co-op placements at Abbott Point of Care, a high volume medical device manufacturer. She graduated in December 2014 hoping to build a career in innovation and development of medical devices. She joined Baylis Medical as an R&D Engineer Associate in January 2015 and soon after was promoted to R&D Engineer. She currently lives and works in Toronto.
I work as a Research and Development Engineer at Baylis Medical. As an R&D engineer, I get to work within a team to better understand the challenges facing the health care system and develop innovative solutions for them. I get to work on different phases of product development from ideation, design, prototyping to manufacturing transfer.
I was always fascinated by potential power of collaboration between different fields of science. Experiencing this first hand and building a bridge between engineering and medicine is what I love most about my job.
Having a degree in Mechanical Engineering opened doors to different career paths; from Oil and Gas to Automotive to Medical Device Sector. Design and Development of medical devices, just like any other products, require a strong mechanical aptitude such as 3D modeling, tolerancing and dimensioning that I was fortunate to build in the course of obtaining my degree.
That learning never stops. My undergraduate studies were a great foundation that I keep building on every day.
One of the most interesting projects I have been involved in was development of a Hydrophilic wire that is used to treat occlusions in peripheral vessels. I was lucky to become involved from initial stages of defining customer requirements to later stages of prototyping, testing, and animal studies. It was an amazing opportunity to tackle the different challenges that come up in each of these phases and see a raw idea to get fully developed into a product.
I hope our society can overcome the gender-based biases and everyone will be encouraged to choose a career path based on their passion.
Do not be discouraged by the unproportional gender ratio in the workforce/colleges and do not see yourself any different than all your male counterparts! We are living in a country that provides us with tremendous opportunity to pursue our passion. Employers respect quality work and are hungry for bright human resources. If you have a mind for problem solving and a heart to make people’s lives better, working in R&D of medical devices could be the perfect path for you.
