BioE Student Spotlight: Lily Makkas
Name:
Lily Makkas
Where are you from/where is your hometown?
Sherborn, Massachusetts
What degree type are you pursuing?
BS Bioengineering
What is your specialization, OR, do you have any other majors/minors?
- Degree concentration: pharmaceuticals
- Minor: supply chain management
Are you involved in any bioengineering related organizations (both inside or outside of Lehigh)? If so, please specify.
Rossin Junior Fellows, Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society, Society of Women Engineers (SWE), BMES
Why did you decide to come to Lehigh University?
Lehigh has proven to be the perfect fit for me even if I didn't know it at the time when deciding on Lehigh. I picked Lehigh because I was looking for a mid size school where I could get to know a large percentage of students and faculty well without the school feeling too small/cramped that boasted a strong engineering program.
Another aspect of Lehigh that was very important to me coming in is that the culture of Lehigh is collaborative rather than competitive. Instead of feeling pitted against my classmates, I have been able to learn so much from them and work collaboratively, forming some of my greatest friendships at Lehigh.
Why did you decide to study bioengineering?
Throughout high school I always knew I wanted to do something STEM related in college- I really liked math, biology and the few classes that gave me opportunities to work on engineering projects or ones that enacted my problem solving abilities. I discovered the field of bioengineering that seemingly bridged my interests of biology and the hands-on problem solving aspect of engineering which immediately piqued my interest.
Additionally, the onset of COVID-19 was in my junior year of high school when I was beginning to consider a future career path. The pandemic truly demonstrated the need and importance of bioengineering and the bioengineers that work in this field and inspired me that someday I could make a difference in the world through developing and producing life saving therapeutics.
What do you want to be/do after you graduate? How will this degree help you get there?
When I graduate I want to work in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Ideally, I would like to complete an operations/manufacturing rotational program at a pharmaceutical company where I can get a good feel for the different aspects of operations that go into the holistic manufacturing process of therapeutics. Gaining a cross functional knowledge of manufacturing operations would allow me to explore various departments and understand what I would like to create a future career path in and maybe also what I wouldn't.
I am also the type of person that is able to analyze a system more in depth if I know how different functions of the system operate, and a rotational program would allow me to gain this knowledge. My degree focusing on biopharmaceutical engineering and my minor in supply chain management have allowed me to understand biologic production on both an in-depth molecular scale as well as a larger manufacturing scale considering all of the moving parts of a company which will help me pursue a career path which integrates these knowledge areas.
Share a good experience/memory with a faculty/staff member/peers/or class within bioengineering:
This past summer I was able to study abroad in Galway, Ireland and conduct research on computational heart modeling. Specifically I was working to transform patient echocardiography data into usable plots in creating a patient specific bi-ventricular computational heart model. This research pushed me out of my comfort zone as I usually am hesitant about coding as it is not always my favorite subject, however the research was so unique of anything I had worked on in the past and I ended up loving it.
Additionally, I have always wanted to study abroad so this was a really exciting experience for me. There were a bunch of other engineers on the program I was able to grow close to and I got to spend so much time with Sonia Trinkle, one of my BioE friends, and was able to both learn a new skill set in the lab and explore a new country together.
Share a fun fact (or two, or three) about yourself!
- I love skiing and field hockey. In high school my field hockey team won our state championship.
- After lab, me and my BioE friends have a tradition to go to Potts' hot dog drive through.
- My track relay team in high school set a record for most disqualifications in one 4 x 100 race.
What words of wisdom do you have for current or future students of bioengineering at Lehigh?
First, perseverance is extremely important. What people say is true, bioengineering is a hard major and requires a lot of hard work and determination- but with that comes rewarding payoffs. If you fail an exam don't give up, I promise everyone has failed an exam at some point and it will not be the end of the world. Ten years down the line your life is not going to be over because you failed a calc exam freshman year so even if it feels like the end of the world in the moment remember it's not and there's so much more ahead.
Second, meet new people and make friends in your classes. None of my friends that I had made freshman year were majoring in bioengineering so I was scared to go into sophomore year without any friends in my classes. I stepped out of my comfort zone and introduced myself to other sophomores in bioe110, we would end up studying together late at night, grabbing coffee between classes and now they are genuinely my best friends at Lehigh. Not only was I able to meet people I will be friends with forever in some of my BioE classes, but it has been incredibly helpful to have people to study with for all of my classes and help explain concepts to me when I don't understand.