Health care is an innovative and demanding field, but the work goes far beyond doctors and nurses. There are hundreds of people behind the scenes in business management, research, and more who drive progress. Krista Lea has had the opportunity to learn this first hand after joining the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota last year as a Health Systems Engineer.
Lea started her career in food manufacturing but was excited to transition to a role that would better utilize her industrial engineering skills. In her new role, she and her team provide management engineering and business consulting services to practices across the Mayo Clinic enterprise. “We help teams solve complex problems that ultimately benefit our patients in terms of care, value, and quality,” Lea said. “It is incredibly rewarding work, and I feel honored to do what I do.”
Since joining the clinic, Lea has been able to apply many of the skills she has developed through the Master of Science in Engineering program at UW-Platteville. Lessons learned from her Applied Statistics and Design of Experiments courses improved her work, and allowed her to develop statistics trainings for her staff and colleagues using programs like Minitab.
This drive to help others through shared knowledge made Lea a standout candidate for the 2019 John Deere Women in Engineering Scholarship, a $2,000 award presented to a UW-Platteville M.S. Engineering student each year. Finding out she was this year’s recipient couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Being selected to receive the John Deere Women in Engineering Scholarship is a huge honor, and it was the best 30th birthday present,” Lea said. “Not having to worry about finances will help me focus what really matters, which is doing well in school, continuing to perform well at work, and being present at home with my family.”
This is not the first time that Lea’s passion has been recognized, however. She is also an active participant in the NSF STEM Master Scholar program, a unique partnership between the National Science Foundation and UW-Platteville to provide financial support and additional resources to help populations underrepresented in the sciences achieve academic and professional success.
“The NSF STEM Master Scholar program has been more helpful than I ever imagined. Not only does it offer significant financial help to students, but it also provides opportunities to connect with peer mentors and industry mentors in your first year. Both of my mentors were instrumental in helping me work through problems at work and learning how to balance work, school, and home life effectively,” Lea said.
Lea also had her own words of encouragement for women pursuing STEM fields: “In my opinion, the best skillset you can possess is grit – a combination of passion and perseverance towards a goal. Use your personal and professional network to understand what your opportunities are. Ask questions, try things that might not work out, but always learn and be better the next time around.”