Abbott (Cephea TMVR)
Saint Paul, MN
Senior Principal R&D Engineer & Technical Lead
November 2025 – Present
Senior Staff R&D Engineer & Manager
April 2022 – November 2025
Staff R&D Engineer
September 2019 – April 2022
- Directed three distinct cross-functional core teams (Hydrodynamics & Durability, Delivery System Integration, and Clinical Technology — 35 members across multiple sites), aligning strategy, timelines, resources, and activities for major programs. Planned budgets, capital investments, and contracts while collaborating with division leadership, finance, legal, facilities, and IT to deliver programs on time and within budget.
- Managed 4 engineers and mentored 6 others, fostering their professional growth and skill development.
- Initiated and directed a 4-year investigation into LARALAB Heart.ai, an AI-based patient screening software in collaboration with Abbott's legal, licensing, acquisitions, cybersecurity, clinical, and R&D organizations with support from the CEO, culminating in the acquisition of the company.
- Customer-facing representative at major conferences, showcases, trainings, and design validation testing.
- Established central database & dashboards to improve sharing and utilization of clinical and R&D data.
- Developed predictive models for post-op valve shape, optimal catheter path, and deployment dynamics.
- Contributed to successful approval of 2 EFS studies and FDA breakthrough designation from pre-sub to submission. Led significant portions of submission strategy pertaining to design verification and validation testing.
- Selected and managed relationships and contracts with 9 key suppliers (domestic and international).
- Led design and development under Design Controls for several key components of current and future generations of the Cephea transcatheter mitral valve and its delivery system, including leaflets, skirts, valve capsule, and loading tools.
- Led division-wide effort to address R&D Gallup poll scores on behalf of division leadership.
- Received 1 Abbott President's Award and 18 Abbott Excellence Awards for major contributions beyond my role.
- Originated 13 invention disclosures and patent applications.
- Planned and executed root cause investigations, DOEs, and FMEA risk assessments to optimize performance and reliability.
