Jill Mullan

INSIGHTS

Jill Mullan, COO, iSpecimen

iSPECIMEN presents an ideal marriage between technology and work in the spirit of STEM: using an online platform to connect medical researchers with billions of specimens available in healthcare organizations. It brings together advanced medical technology and the creative ingenuity of its team. The reward? Advancing medical discovery — always a great thing.

We asked Chief Operating Officer Jill Mullan a few quick questions that connect her personal journey with the opportunities available to STEM students today. The biggest thing in common? Working in multiple careers in a rapidly evolving world as part of her journey.

STEM TODAY:Your background looks like the path of a STEM science or medical student, though it came a little bit before STEM became a main focus.

Jill Mullan:Yes, I had so many opportunities. After college, I was an electrical engineer and I went into the semiconductor industry, so I've been in technology my whole life. I went from semiconductors to video editing software when it was a brand new thing, then I went into storage networking, and then I went into regular networking. Eventually I made my way to this marketplace concept. So, I've been able to, basically morph my career in technology across a lot of different industries. Then I look within just the life science, uh, space. I mean, there's obviously all the biotech, pharma, diagnostic companies, and medical devices.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jill Mullan by iSpecimen

ST: What is the biggest difference between opportunities then and now?

JL:Today, young people are probably more equipped than we were. What we were getting into after college, kids can start getting into as early as late middle school — of course, we’re talking about different opportunities, but the point is, you can start having these experiences much earlier. And kids today have a huge advantage over my generation, because tech has been their language since they were born.

ST: One of the many impressive things about iSpecimen is that you’re very diverse and also directed from the top by a balanced team of women and men, with you as the CEO. How has that philosophy reached down into your work with STEM students you bring on?

JL: If you look at our company, our C-level team is half women and half men — literally. Our CFO and COO are female, and our CIO and CEO are male. Three out of the five VPs are women. We have two women on our board out of seven people, which is pretty good. One of the interesting things is I took a look at our interns and our tech team. If you look at our tech interns, we hire a lot of students from the local Boston universities, in particular getting a lot of students out of Northeastern or co-op programs. Over the last roughly eight years or so, we've hired 20 interns and 50% of them have been women. Everything has always been purposeful. It’s pervasive in our culture that we look for diversity and inclusion. too.

ST: Life sciences is a big career target for STEM students. Will it continue to grow as fast as it has been the last ten years?

JL: It’s gonna keep expanding and expanding. I was just looking at a report and the projected growth rates are on the order of double digits per year for the next 5, 6, 7 years. There are many new things coming out, which is perfect for the kids today. They will work on things that haven’t even been thought about yet. These ideas have the potential to become a whole new industry, underneath the broader industry, but a whole new industry with massive growth rates. — R.Y.

PHOTO CREDIT: Vadim Ratnikov/Shutterstock

filled with supervisory, managerial, and even executive positions that require such a background.

Going through the Women in STEM section in this magazine, it’s easy to see that none of the women featured are standing at the bottom of the career ladder. They are leaders — every one of them.

They didn’t get there solely because of their degree. It happened because they are powerful, creative thinking leaders. Regardless of your career, the secret to rising through the ranks is to make yourself the rock star they depend on.

Swati Shekhar, head of engineering at Ground Labs, believes one of the smartest things a STEMhopeful can do is to gain practical experience even as a teenager.

“Don’t wait for a degree or a job “If your passion is STEM, I advise gaining practical experience to describe a path for you; be — do projects, tinker, build, prototype, test new technologies, ready to ‘engineer’ your own career path.” spend time working both in a group and by yourself,” said Shekhar. “Don’t wait for a degree or a job to describe a path for you; be ready to ‘engineer’ your own career path. And finally, identify your role models. A role model may be someone you know, but it can also be an individual you read about or saw from afar who truly inspires you. Learn from them, but always apply what you learn analytically and critically to your unique situation.” It is equally important to think of your education as a life-long journey, not a phase that ends in your teens or 20s. More so than in other career paths, these jobs require constant learning due to the evolution of the industries themselves. For example, having studied computers in the mid1980s will do nothing for a career that begins today. Whether it’s new lab technology, programming languages, or even discoveries in physics, this knowledge changes and grows as time passes.