BioE Alumni Spotlight: Bonaire Berry '18
Name:
Bonaire Berry
Where are you from/where is your hometown?
New Oxford, PA
Where do you currently live and work? What is your current company, job title, and job description?
Boulder, CO; Senior R&D Engineer at Medtronic; I currently design oximetry and wearable sensors.
What degree(s) did you get from Lehigh BioE, and what year(s) did you graduate?
Bachelors of Science Bioengineering, 2018
What other degrees do you have, from what institutions, and what year(s) did you graduate?
- Masters of Science in Bioengineering from the University of Colorado, 2020
- Doctorate of Engineering from George Washington University in Engineering Management, 2023
Thinking back, why did you choose to come to Lehigh University? What is a favorite memory surrounding Lehigh University in general and being on campus?
I came for the chance to play D1 Volleyball while receiving a premier education in engineering. One of my favorite memories is meeting my now husband Sam, in Linderman Library to study and grab coffee between classes.
Thinking back to when you decided to pursue bioengineering, why did you choose this major? How has studying bioengineering served you in your career?
I was always intrigued by the human body and biology, but did not want to be a medical doctor (I am very squeamish with blood). Discovering bioengineering gave me the opportunity to study a subject I loved, but apply it in a different way. Studying bioengineering taught me to problem solve and think critically about the complexities of designing for human physiology. This has been the hallmark of my career and continues to be one of my greatest strengths.
Share a good memory from your time in Lehigh BioE (can be with a faculty/staff member/peers/or class):
One of my favorite memories was going to a local butcher shop in the Lehigh valley to pick up bovine tendons with my capstone project team so that we could do cell culture work in Professor Perry's lab with tendon fibroblasts.
Share your career/life path with us! Since graduating from Lehigh BioE, what have you been up to? What are some personal and professional accomplishments, successes, and wins from your life?
Since graduating, I started out my career with Stryker working as an intern and then part time while obtaining my Masters degree from the University of Colorado on the Anschutz medical campus. Following, I started a new role as an R&D engineer at Medtronic, where I have worked on oximetry sensor designs and algorithm integration to platforms. While at Medtronic I started and completed my doctoral degree with research on Bayesian network modeling for predicting product defects. I have also recently become an inventor with filing my first patent disclosure.
Share a fun fact (or two, or three) about yourself!
I was named after the island in the Caribbean (Bonaire is next to Aruba!). I married another Lehigh Athlete.
What words of wisdom do you have for current or future students of bioengineering at Lehigh?
Try not to stress about being challenged, or getting the wrong answers. The process of trying to solve problems and failing fast is where learning and engineering skill takes route. Obtaining your degree should give you a huge amount of confidence for being able to learn and be successful in the engineering world whether it be in academia or industry.
Bonaire is returning to her roots of Lehigh BioE in Fall 2024 as an adjunct instructor! Bonaire has shared a little bit about this course and its background:
Tell us about this course! What can our students expect from taking "Medical Device Product Development Life Cycle"?
This course was structured by me to emulate working in the medical device industry. It will teach tasks that are often the first things R&D engineers in industry encounter and own as they begin to work in a product development environment. Students can expect to learn about what its like to not only develop products, but maintain them and make changes to legacy designs that are aging and entering different phases of their life cycles.
What has your process been like in developing this course? Where did the initial interest come from?
The interest and process for developing this course really stemmed from reflecting on my own academic and industry journey. I benefited so much from working in industry while completing my graduate degrees. It allowed me to tailor my education to fit with industry application, because I could leverage both experiences simultaneously. Both my M.S thesis and doctoral dissertation were industry related and applied to my work projects. Upon reflection I realized that there was a gap that existed between formal education and industry application. As I thought more about it, it became clear that there are a few key topics that could be taught to really set engineers up to be immediately effective and confident when entering the medical device product development industry. I also realized that by trying to teach these topics and explain the product development life cycle, it would only strengthen my own understanding and mastery. I get to learn by teaching!
How has your background suited you to teach this course?
I learned all of the topics in this course on the fly in my first job. Since I have spent the last 6 years in industry executing and mastering many of these tasks I am well prepared to explain how I think about them and how to start to get good at them.
What will it be like- to be an instructor at your very own alma mater?
I am very excited to go back to where I started my very own academic journey. My time at Lehigh was not without challenge or failure. I actually failed Calc 1 my very first semester as a freshman and largely questioned if I was even smart enough to be an engineer! It is very humbling and rewarding to look back on this time and see how far I have come since then. Because of this I am very sympathetic to the students and very much empathize with what its like to be struggling on the other side.
Any other comments/thoughts relating to this course and teaching at Lehigh?
I am so grateful for the opportunity to share my knowledge, encourage young engineers and enable them to enter industry with confidence. I am also very excited to be bringing this course in an online format that will allow students to learn synchronously, but also create space for pursuit of opportunities that may require travel or work during business hours!
If you are an alumni of Lehigh's Bioengineering department and are interested in being spotlighted, please reach out to our graduate coordinator: Rebekah Short, rjs323@lehigh.edu.