Casey Hobel (BioE) wanted to improve lives when she was young. A career in medical device design and technology will help her spread that idea far and wide.

Senior Bioengineering major Casey Hobel excitedly talked about stepping into her career developing next-generation medical devices. She also may be a little argumentative—or at least she says she was younger.

"Everyone told me I should be a lawyer because I was always arguing, but I was really into the idea of helping people, so something in the medical field was a better fit," she said. "Also, being constantly exposed to shows like Scrubs and Grey's Anatomy helped."

When she leaves Temple, she will continue with DSM Biomedical, building on her current eight-month co-op position. There, she will work with R&D teams to provide medical device technology that eventually finds its way into surgeons' hands.

"It is helping people, but in a broader way. Some of the first things you need to think about with a new device or product is 'what unmet need are we trying to fill? Are there long heal times? Are there revision surgeries? How do we improve upon these things?'"

Still, when explaining her career choice, Hobel uses a broken bone as an example.

"If someone breaks a bone, I can point to where my work fits into the process of their healing. Tell me what kind of break, where it is, and I know what devices are going to help them," she said. "It's awesome knowing that device can be used to help across hundreds of patients, or more."

She's prepared to make the jump from class to craft through her journey as one of the College's earliest bioengineering majors, and through the structure of Senior Design's hands-on process.

"It teaches you to be a problem-solver and how to interact with people, and time management," she said. "And even though I'm not sitting down doing a stack of differential equations, they're part of my work."

Though her next few years will likely include pursuit of a Masters in either Materials Engineering or Biochemical Engineering while working in medical device design, Hobel will miss the environment at the College of Engineering.

"It's so weird that, this building is where I've spent 16 hours a day some days. I was here every day for months, and pretty soon I won't be. I'll miss it."

Follow our full Next Stop series to see where some of this semester's graduating seniors are headed.