Natalie Kuldell (00:01):
We’ll have a, a quick conversation with you and, and then I’ll follow up with the students about some of their questions for office hours. But I am just so very happy to reconnect with you. With these conversations I usually just ask people we’re talking with to introduce themselves and what they’re currently doing, and then we back it up a little bit just to talk about how you got there. So maybe we can start with that. Can you introduce yourself and say what you’re doing these days?
Katelyn Sweeney (00:31):
Yeah, absolutely. So my name’s Katelyn Sweeney. I know Professor Kuldell because I was in her introductory bioengineering class way back in 2014 when I was a freshman at MIT. I am currently a graduate student at Harvard University doing my master’s in engineering science and my mba. And I’m actually no longer in like the biomedical industry. I now work in aerospace weirdly enough, but the, my experience with the sort of bioengineering and course at MIT is what propelled me into engineering in general. So it was a big part of me ending up in a weirdly very different field. But yeah, so I, I’m in aerospace engineering now. That’s the plan is to go back as a, a systems engineer when I graduate TBD where but I’m happy to go dive into any part of my, my career and personal journey.
Natalie Kuldell (01:24):
Yeah, so it’s fascinating to be combining engineering and an mba. I think that’s a somewhat unusual combination versus some of the things that we’ve heard about before. Do you wanna say what attracted you to that or what makes that a special program?
Katelyn Sweeney (01:41):
Yeah, I’m happy to especially because I love it so much. I think it’s such a great combination for me personally. So I’m really interested in entrepreneurship. I worked at startups before coming back to grad school and I worked for one startup that was on an amazing trajectory and all of a sudden COVID hit and funding dried up and then the startup was dead in the water, which was very strange because the technology was so cool. I was really surprised and I remember as an engineer being really confused by how that could happen. And then I joined another startup and started to see some of the same red flags pop up about a year in and our funding started to dry up and I was like, this keeps happening even though the technology’s really good, this should succeed, what’s going on? And when I dug in, I realized that it was because business and engineering were not communicating effectively. And so I didn’t wanna assume that when I got to a place in engineering leadership where I was making those decisions that I would just magically know better. So I started looking at dual degree programs. I was torn between MIT’s program, which is the LGO program and Harvard’s program. In the end I actually chose Harvard, not for lack of love for MIT, but because I had done the MIT experience once and I knew I could cross register so I wanted to try something new. But the goal was basically to sit in MBA classes and hear how people on the business leadership side were learning what incentivized them and how they were thinking, so that eventually when I’m hopefully leading technical side of a venture someday, that I’ll know how to speak that language and know how to frame my solutions to better include successful business outcomes. And I think especially for really tough tech applications like aerospace engineering, it’s really important to understand the whole scope of the solution you’re proposing because it’s very easy to get stuck in the we, I do this all the time. I get really stuck in the weeds of like the technical details of what I’m proposing and how much like niche efficiency will be saving and how cool like the technology is. And I totally forget about like costs and operations and the people side of things, which you can’t get something off the ground without that both literally and figuratively.
Natalie Kuldell (03:45):
So in aerospace engineering you mean it quite literally as well as figuratively. That’s amazing. Well, I I think it’s, it’s such a smart and interesting perspective because the best ideas remain ideas unless they can actually be adopted and turned into consumerable products or opportunities for, for implementation. So, and that is the business side of it, so. So do you like using both parts of your brain?
Katelyn Sweeney (04:14):
I love it. I, I think it’s a really cool space to be in. It’s sort of where my niche is in engineering is being able to like communicate ideas effectively and, and think with both sides of my brain. I think it’s a really fun problem solving challenge especially to have to sort of switch your dialect between the two fields. Yeah, I love it a lot. I think it’s a really fun challenge.
Natalie Kuldell (04:39):
That’s so great. And, and you know, you have in my memory always been a really great problem solver. That was the, the kind of class that, that we were in together that I taught you when you were a freshman was a problem solving class. Is that something that you’ve always been doing? You know, when you were in high school, were you known as a problem solver or have interest in that?
Katelyn Sweeney (05:02):
Yeah, I, I, I started in high school, so when I, my journey to engineering is a little strange. I came into high school hating math and science cause I, I had at the, at the time I didn’t know it, but I had adhd so I had trouble focusing in class and I like didn’t think I was good at it even though I, I had a knack for it. I just struggled with like, remembering to do my homework and like being able to like focus on math without what I saw as a purpose. Like when equations on the board didn’t interest me, but real life problems did. And I, thankfully my freshman year had a science teacher who saw that and started giving we was a much smaller class. It was only like 10 people started giving projects that were rooted in reality. Like, you know, doing math to see like how roller coasters work or like learning about like, the history of engineering and how like different inventions came to be and like mapping those out scientifically over time. It was just really interesting and that sort of made me like, made me click that I was like, oh, okay, I actually do really, really like this as long as I can see the connection to real life. And so I got involved with robotics, a couple different projects in our hometown doing robotics for community development. We did a bunch of stuff with our fire department helping them with rescue safety robots, which was a ton of fun. And that’s what got me into it. And then I think that indexing on creative real problem solving is part of why the intro to bioengineering class was so impactful for me was because it, it made that connection, especially in the freshman year at MIT, which is very theoretical and very like high level on a bunch of subjects. To have an elective that kind of rooted physics and biology and chemistry all back into reality was really helpful for me and was the, the final straw for me being like, okay, I definitely wanna do something engineering rather than raw science. Just because that’s what I’m good at. I like creative problem solving and sort of index the rest of my career on that.
Natalie Kuldell (06:53):
Oh, I think it’s, it’s so wonderful to hear and, and I love the connection that you keep making between creativity and problem solving. I think that when people traditionally think about engineering or even business, they, they don’t make that, that’s not the first thing that comes to mind for people. The, the requirement, the need, the deep need for creativity and, and as you think about how to make something better, right?
Katelyn Sweeney (07:18):
Yeah. It’s, it’s crucial I think, especially nowadays to be thinking creatively about how to solve problems that are so complex and multifaceted to be able to look at it through creative lens is critical. Yeah, I, I think that’s, that’s something that I, I really like pin my technical expertise on is being able to think with a creative lens.
Natalie Kuldell (07:41):
That’s so fabulous. So you’ve been you’ve been in Boston for a while, although you’re not calling in from Boston today. Where was your hometown?
Katelyn Sweeney (07:50):
You caught me on an off weekend
Natalie Kuldell (07:51):
Where is, where is home for you or your hometown?
Katelyn Sweeney (07:56):
Yeah, I actually grew up just outside of Boston in a town called Natick, Massachusetts. And so I, I’m Boston local through and through I did one of the startups I worked at right after college. I moved out to the San Francisco area for two and a half years and then came back, worked here, and then started grad school again. So I’ve been in the Boston area for I would say the majority of my life so far.
Natalie Kuldell (08:19):
Yeah. Good, good place to be from lot, lots of great things happening here. Yeah. So I guess I, I know you’ve just landed and, and could probably use a nap, but I do wanna ask, like if you could go back and, and tell yourself something when you were in high school, what, what would that be? What, what kind of wisdom do you have now that you kind of wish you had known when you were starting out?
Katelyn Sweeney (08:45):
Yeah. I think, I wish I could go back to like early high school, Katelyn that wasn’t quite making the connection between being good in the classroom and being good at something in like real life and just give myself a little more confidence. I think it’s very easy to like get very down on yourself in that stage of life and it, it was a very competitive environment like public school in Massachusetts. You know, it’s like test scores really matter. People are really like stressed about their grades all the time. I was no different. So I think I wish I could go back and like tell myself to relax and focus on what I like and focus on learning rather than optimizing for test scores at like, the expense of everything else. Because I think when I think about what was most impactful for my career later, it was when I optimized for really learning and being creative and inventive. And that was, that was where I found the stuff I enjoyed the most too. So I, I’d probably just go back and like advise myself to relax a little bit and remember that, you know, you do like this stuff and you’re good at it and can do it and just give myself a little confidence boost. Yeah. Because it’s, it’s still something I work on today, but it’s come a lot more naturally as I’ve gotten older.
Natalie Kuldell (09:54):
Yeah. I, I think confidence comes from, from confidence and from successes and, and what’s so interesting is that, you know, you’ve been at some startups that, that haven’t knocked it out of the park. It’s not like everything has gone just great. Right. But you are learning from it and, and building confidence almost because it has been challenging not despite Right. You know?
Katelyn Sweeney (10:18):
Yeah. It was really easy when, when my first startup went under, it was almost a year to the day after we had raised a 1.2 billion funding ground. So the whiplash of like raising a ton of money, being like the new hot thing in Silicon Valley and then a year, like literally a year later having no money and then no employees was like, it’s hard to not take it personally. And I think that I had to go back and like re-remind myself for real time, like, you know, this is not a personal failure. It was great technology. What can we take and learn from this and how can we be better next time?
Natalie Kuldell (10:50):
Yeah, Yeah. Which startup was it?
Katelyn Sweeney (10:53):
It was a company called One Web and it was doing global satellite internet access, so trying to make broadband internet affordable and accessible for everyone. They are actually back, they got bought by the UK government shortly after the bankruptcy, and they’re sort of pivoting, I think, into a new, I don’t know if they’re still trying to do global internet. I think they might be trying to do like a lower earth orbit, almost like a GPS analog. But yeah, they were a satellite company and they were one of the unicorns in Silicon Valley for a little bit. Yeah, so really fun to be there during that period of time to be at a, like hot growing startup is a ton of fun.
Natalie Kuldell (11:30):
Yeah. I we should all have that chance, right? To have a $1 billion raise. Yeah.
Katelyn Sweeney (11:37):
The trick is trying to pick one that continues to grow
Natalie Kuldell (11:41):
Right? Right. Exactly. Yep. Well it is spectacular to catch up with you. I I just think you’ve done so much great stuff with your learning and you have such a, a thoughtful way of approaching it. I am sure that once school is done, you will be Forbes bound and, and really, you know, really just knocking it out of the park with another startup. We need good, smart time.
Katelyn Sweeney (12:07):
Thank you so much. It. Yeah. Oh, anytime. Yeah.
Katelyn Sweeney (12:12):
Yeah. We do have a couple of students on the line and I know there are some technical questions related to their projects, but while we have Katelyn, before we let her go, do any of the students have questions for her?
Alexander C. (12:26):
Yeah. Where, where did you two meet each other? Was it at MIT?
Katelyn Sweeney (12:30):
Yeah. Professor Kuldell was my freshman year intro bioengineering professor. So it was like a project based class. It was, it was pretty small. It was probably like maybe 12, 15 people in that class. And it was like an introduction to bioengineering through projects. I still, it’s one of the classes I remember most vividly actually at MIT because it was like so practical and creative and hands on. It’s stuck with me weirdly enough, even though it wasn’t a part of my final major. But yeah, that’s where we met.
Natalie Kuldell (13:00):
I think that’s so great. I, I could go back and look. I don’t remember what your project was about though, but it was very team oriented. I know,
Katelyn Sweeney (13:10):
I think we did, we did like color changing E.Coli to help direct or help detect colon cancer, which was a super fun, like very real application. So it was really cool to explore it through the literature and like the different experiments we got to do, especially as a freshman with like very little experience in that field.
Natalie Kuldell (13:28):
Yeah. I, I can’t tell you how much it has made my day that a handful of years since, you know, that that that class, you can remember that, that, that that that it made a difference. So yeah. Umhese students are working on some project ideas too through an online program called our Idea Accelerator, which we developed during covid help bring students together and think about designing biotechnologies to make the world better. Um don’t know if, if there are thoughts about those projects that you wanna share, you guys who are on the line? Katelyn’s very friendly.
Ria K Amineni (14:04):
I just had a question. Do you have any advice for coming up with an idea, like the process of forming like a research question? Because there’s so many topics out there for bioengineering and it’s so vague. So like, something that could help like a high school student narrow down an applicable topic, but at the same time skill wise, like a high school student could do.
Katelyn Sweeney (14:30):
Yeah. I have, I have a lot of thoughts on this that like product iteration and ideation process is something I, I spent a lot of my career like delving into personally. And having written like a thesis and now looking at having to do another one, like figuring out what my problems space is, is, is a very critical question. So I would, first thing I would say is eliminate that last clause from your sentence, from your brainstorming. The, like, what’s in the realm of what a high schooler could do. When you’re thinking about ideas at the brainstorming phase, the realm of like, well, what am I personally capable of should not be a factor in like listing out your ideas. That like the reality check has to come a little later. Like if you have a real moonshot idea that just truly isn’t feasible in the time scope, then you can eliminate it. But I would really encourage you to like, think beyond what you think you’re capable of. Because I know I’ve certainly surprised myself having worked with a couple other, like, invention-based high school programs. I’ve seen other students around your age definitely surprised themselves with they’re capable of. So in brainstorming, give yourself a little bit of like grace in what you can achieve. And then later on if something is like truly out of scope, you can go back and like renegotiate how you’re looking at the problem and the idea to fix it. Practically when it comes to brainstorming, the way I personally like to do it is with mind maps. I’m a very visual person, so I’ll put like a very general problem statement in the middle. Right. Like for the bioengineering class, for example, I think everyone in our group was really passionate about early cancer detection. So we just kind of mapped that out in the middle of our little whiteboard and we’d like think about different, like, sub problems within that and draw connections between everything and think about like, you know, what would it take to solve each one and where are they connected? Where can you find like a cross-functional solution? Uand I, I just like mapping things out visually. The way I do that now with mechanical projects is I’ll often put like a,like I did this for MIT’s capstone for mechanical Engineering 2009. Our, our theme word was super, which every project had to have some like super component to it. So I put that word in the middle and started like, drawing out technologies that seemed like super or like words that came to mind with super and like eventually ideas would just kind of pop up. So you kind of have to let it be a little free form, which feels weird when you’re used to like stem and engineering and having a very clear process. This is where sort of that creativity comes in is just allowing your mind to wander and accept ideas as they come. And I would definitely encourage you not to eliminate any ideas in the brainstorming process until they’re all written down. Because there have definitely been times where I’ll write an idea down being like, That’s silly, I’m definitely not gonna do that. And I’ll go back and look at it again and be like, Oh my gosh, wait, that actually is a really good idea. Or I’ll connect it to another idea somewhere else in the map,and be like, Oh, that actually, that’s also a really good idea. Ubut yeah, it’s, it’s just a, it takes practice to like kind of ideate in that way. Uand maybe like a visual map’s not the best way to do it. Maybe like a list or a chart makes more sense for the way your brain works. Ubut yeah, just open, brainstorm as many ideas as you can and they don’t all have to be realistic and then later on go through and filter for, you know, realism and applicability and things like that.
Natalie Kuldell (17:42):
That’s really great. Great advice. It is, it is a real disciplined approach to being creative, right? It it is. There’s a free form to it, but it does require that you not, you know, assess too much as, as you’re going along or else you’ll throw out as you say, some ideas that, you know, maybe on their own aren’t the ideas that you’re gonna go with, but combined with something else that you also have. Could be just the key.
Katelyn Sweeney (18:10):
Yeah. A practice I wanted to get back into because you, it is totally a discipline. When I was like early in my career at One Web I would every morning before work cause I was a bit of a morning person back then, I don’t know what happened, it’s since very much changed. But back when I was a morning person, I’d sit down with my coffee and like at the dictionary word of the day and make like ideation mind maps based on that, which was really fun because I never knew what it was gonna be. It could be something totally random sometimes it was a word that very much did not lend itself to mind mapping, But it was just good to get the practice in of like making those connections in your brain between different ideas and disciplines.
Natalie Kuldell (18:46):
That is so cool. I’m gonna try that. I’m gonna try that between Now and that’s end of the year. It’s really fun.
Katelyn Sweeney (18:53):
It was like it was almost like the like morning crossword ritual right? Where it was just kinda getting my brain warm up in that way. I should probably start doing that again. It was fun.
Katelyn Sweeney (19:01):
Yeah. In our spare time. Yeah. No, that, yeah.
Katelyn Sweeney (19:04):
The abundance of spare time. Yes.
Katelyn Sweeney (19:05):
Yeah. Well it has been a joy to catch up with you, Kailin. Thank you so much for taking some time to, to chat with the students. They are they’re doing great work. They, this is the, the future of innovation for sure. They’re getting very early the ideas that most of us only came to quite late. So yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Inspiring them.
Natalie Kuldell (19:26):
Of course. This is such a cool program. I’m like so excited to hear about y’all’s ideas and like what you end up coming up with.