Hanna joined Ginkgo Bioworks right out of college. She is on their digital technology team.
In our conversation on November 9th, 2022, Hanna described how she could not have predicted her current career pursuit.
After graduating MIT with bachelor’s degree in biological engineering, she decided she did not want to pursue a PhD. Instead she began working in industry at Ginkgo Bioworks, but her role was not directly involved in organism engineering. Instead, she has worked in product management, ensuring that the software used by the scientists and engineers is well-designed and highly functional. This past year, she moved to product design, actually building and shaping Ginkgo’s software directly.
She described how her background in biological engineering helps her know what scientists need from the software, and how she has learned much of the needed computer science on the job.