Sasha Keck was the only girl in her high school engineering class of 26 students. By her senior year of college, she and her team had patented a surgical device that could cut spinal surgery exposure time in half.
As a Technical Development Program Engineer at Edwards Lifesciences, Sasha bridges the gap between R&D innovation and manufacturing reality. She's part of a generation that grew up during a pandemic, learned to code with ChatGPT, and shares their location with friends as naturally as older generations exchange phone numbers.
In this conversation, Sasha shares her journey from building mobility devices for paralyzed dogs named Harold and Fred in high school, to developing VacuTrac—a combined retractor and suction device for spinal surgery at Rice University. She reveals what it's like to be a young woman in mechanical engineering, how she and her team iterated through hundreds of 3D-printed prototypes, and why this generation's adaptability might be exactly what MedTech needs.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
01:03 Choosing an Undergraduate Program During COVID-19
03:36 High School Engineering Projects
05:56 Freshman Year at Rice University
09:48 Senior Design Project: VacuTrac
20:58 Current Work and Future Aspirations
25:36 Ensuring Accurate Testing and Identifying Failure Points
26:17 Utilizing AI and Automated Tools in Engineering
28:24 Challenges and Opportunities in Medical Device Development
31:09 The Importance of Pediatric and Rare Disease Research
33:47 Navigating Career Paths and Future Aspirations
43:36 Addressing Gender Disparities in Engineering
49:09 Reflections and Advice for Young Professionals
52:45 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Follow Shannon and Sasha:
Connect with Shannon:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonlantzy/
Website: https://www.shannonlantzy.com/
Connect with Sasha:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sasha-keck/
