biomedical engineer Career Path | See the Career Paths People Really Take

research assistant

test engineer

intern

chief executive officer

laboratory intern

biomedical engineer

research intern

field service technician

graduate teaching assistant

senior research scientist

Biomedical engineers apply engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology to improve healthcare.  They combine the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical biological sciences to advance healthcare, including diagnosis, treatment, and therapy.  Biomedical engineers have researched and developed things such as biocompatible prostheses, various diagnostic and therapeutic medical devices ranging from clinical equipment to micro-implants, common imaging equipment such as MRIs and EKG/ECGs, regenerative tissue growth, pharmaceutical drugs and therapeutic biologicals. Also included under the scope of a biomedical engineer is the management of current medical equipment within hospitals.

The Chief Executive Officer makes the decisions for a company in how to manage operations and resources.  Their role is to maintain a deep knowledge of the markets and industry of the company, analyze problematic situations and occurrences, and provide solutions to ensure company survival and growth.  Their responsibilities are to build trust relations with key partners and stakeholders, act as a point of contact for important shareholders, review financial and non-financial reports to devise solutions or improvements, enforce adherence to legal guidelines and in-house policies, make high quality investing decisions to advance the business and increase profits, and lead and motivate subordinates to improve employee engagement.

The Field Service Technician responds to customer callouts by providing technical service and maintenance support at onsite customer locations.  Their role is installing, managing and repairing equipment in the field.  Their responsibilities are providing technical training when needed, meeting with the customer to determine the nature of the service or repair, conducting routine equipment servicing, inspecting and troubleshooting tool failures, repairing tools and replacing damaged parts, installing and testing new equipment, maintaining equipment stock in the company vehicle, and completing job reports.

A Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) is a student who assists faculty members in teaching courses at the university level. GTAs typically provide academic support to students, such as leading tutorials and labs, grading papers and exams, providing feedback on assignments, facilitating discussion sections, holding office hours for extra help or tutoring sessions, and helping faculty with other course-related tasks. They may also be asked to assist in research projects or participate in professional development opportunities.

An Intern helps a company with work in order to gain experience and skills in a specific area.  Their role is working closely with different team members to learn more about the company and industry.  Their responsibilities are to perform tasks set out by supervisors, attend meetings and take minutes, perform research at a supervisor's request, update social media platforms, and write copy and create images for social media posts.

A Lab Intern works under supervison to gain experience working in a lab.  Their role is to organize and maintain the stock of laboratory and sampling supplies, and prepare, sort, wash, decontaminate, sterilize and store all laboratory glassware.  Their responsibilities are to prepare and preserve bottles before sample collection and analysis, maintain laboratory cleanliness, prepare reports and recommendations, compile data or materials and create spreadsheets, participate in pulling documents and filing information, and make reports, manuals and publications.

A research assistant assists in academic or private research and are directed by more senior researchers to provide support in furthering experiments and gathering and analyzing information. Research assistant responsibilities are to collect and log experimental data, conduct statistical analysis of data sets, prepare graphs and spreadsheets to portray results, create presentation slides and posters to help researchers present findings, review print and online resources to gather information and maintain laboratory equipment and inventory.

Curious about a career in ecology? Watch this insightful interview to learn how to get started, even without a college degree. Hear from a research assistant studying Florida scrub jays, who shares the highs and lows of the job, the importance of field experience, and tips for breaking into the field. If you love nature and science, this video is a must-watch!

<h2>How to Start in Ecology</h2><p>You don't necessarily need a college degree, it might help,but you really just have to find a job where you can get some field experience under your belt&nbsp; and then work up within the company. Probably the easiest way to do it.</p><p><br></p><h2>How I Became a Research Assistant&nbsp;</h2><p>Personally, I got a college degree at Eckerd College, which is a local school in Florida, and I gained some research experience studying black skimmers, which is a kind of bird there.</p><p>One seasonal tech job in Oregon, where I was listening for birds and doing other research, like population surveys, and then I applied for this internship and worked my way up to the research assistant level.</p><h2><br></h2><h2>Research Assistant Requirements</h2><p>This position really requires that you're detail oriented for things like data entry, but also able to be super outdoorsy or pay attention to little behavioral issues and kind of be okay with waking up at sunrise and whacking through all of that mess that’s really fun, stuff like that. So it really requires that you wear a lof of different hats. I love it.</p><p><br></p><h2>Average Day</h2><p>Currently what my average week looks like is waking up at sunrise, coming to the office, going out in our ATVs into this shrub. And then going to the three territories of different Florida scrub jays, which is the species that I study, and trying to find their nests. Continue monitoring the nests that we do find throughout the year and just generally collecting demography information on them, and it is super fun.</p><p><br></p><h2>Pros and Cons of a Field Research Assistant</h2><p>Some of the pros of this job are that I get to spend all of my mornings in nature, which is beautiful and awesome, and I get to learn so much about the ecosystem that I'm in.</p><p>And I also just love the people that I work with. I love the community here at the biological station. Some of the cons are that when you're having a rough morning in the field, you'll really just kind of wish you had an office job. So it's definitely not all peaches and roses being in nature every day.</p><p><br></p><h2>Advice From an Expert</h2><p><br></p><p>I would just recommend getting field experience early on, looking for those seasonal tech jobs and a lot of local places that&nbsp; do bird banding. You can reach out to them, and they're always accepting volunteers. That's a great experience to get.</p><p><br></p><h2>Things to Know</h2><p>Looking back, I do wish I had known how exhausting the job can be, because it's fun and the highs are so high, but the lows can be low and frustrating. But at the end of the day, I love my job and I love what I do, so it makes it all worth it.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

The Research Intern assists in academic or private research and are directed by more senior researchers to provide support in furthering experiments and gathering and analyzing information.  Their role is to gain practical experience in an organization by completing a variety of research duties.  Their responsibilities are preparing information and research materials, performing data collection, conducting analysis and taking ownership of the assigned tasks delegate to them, and performing clerical duties.

Senior research scientists are responsible for designing, performing and analysing information from lab based experiments.  The role of a senior research scientist is to develop a research plan, effectively apply plans, and prepare scientific reports while directing a team to help complete the various elements of the experiments. Their responsibilities are to create and conduct experiments, analyze results and data, communicate results to the scientific community, team up with the industry to apply the results of research and present continuing work and findings.

Testing engineers ensure that the product or system is functioning properly and meets the organisation's standards by utilizing manual or automatic testing tools. A test engineer is responsible for testing all aspects of the product or system (e.g. functional, component, system performance, regression and stress), work closely with the development team, and prepare and execute test cases and scenarios, prepare user documents, and product matrix reports.

Biomedical Engineer Career Path