Olivia Ryan, Outstanding Young Engineer in Bioengineering for 2017

Olivia Ryan was presented the Outstanding Young Engineer Award in Bioengineering (OYE) during the 2017 Speed School Homecoming celebration held October 13 at the Brown Hotel.

The award is based on outstanding career performance in engineering, exceptional efforts by an individual to foster the professional development of young engineering college students. exceptional ability in the planning and direction of significant and important projects in technical engineering; and individual contributions to technical engineering knowledge.

Olivia Ryan, a proud Louisville native, earned degrees in Bioengineering from the University of Louisville in 2013 (B.S) and 2014 (M.Eng.). Olivia’s passion is at the intersection of medicine and engineering, with the aim of significantly impacting the quality of patient care through medical devices. Her interest was fostered during her graduate research within the Coulter Translational Research Partnership under Dr. Rob Keynton, where she collaborated with UofL physicians on a novel Laparoscopic Trocar Site Closure device project. Olivia went on to accept a product development engineering position at Cook Medical, a global medical device company based in Bloomington, Indiana. There, she worked to bring innovative medical devices to patients in the fields of critical care, cell therapy, and peripheral Intervention.

Her experience with Cook Medical spanned the entire product development process, from intellectual property generation to regulatory approval. After gaining expertise in large scale device manufacturing, Olivia returned to Kentucky and shifted focus to the emerging medical device startup ecosystem in Louisville. She now works as a Biomedical Engineer for MobileMedTek, a Louisville based neurodiagnostic design firm, which recently secured both CE and FDA clearance on their first product.

Olivia enjoys engaging with the innovation and entrepreneurship community in Louisville, and spends her free time rock climbing, racing triathlons, and teaching Irish dancing.