Engineering for good: She’s already on the job to make the world better | Rowan Today

Given that she was 14, Lauren Repmann has worked at an accelerated pace. By the time she graduated superior school, she previously experienced her associate’s diploma. 

Now, at 21, she has a total-time position at Merck in Durham, North Carolina. She is the very first student from Rowan College to land a spot in the pharmaceutical company’s 3-12 months Manufacturing Leadership Progress Software (MLDP)—and since she graduated with a biomedical engineering degree in December, a full semester early, she’s also the 1st in her cohort to start out in the program. 

Merck’s MLDP is intended to deliver an environment where higher education graduates can expand and acquire knowledge in producing and providing medicines and vaccines that conserve and improve life close to the planet. The application provides coaching from senior leaders at Merck, exposure to true-lifestyle business problems, as properly as instruction from field-leading experts and engineers.

“I’ve constantly been another person who likes to challenge myself,” reported Repmann, who grew up in Laurence Harbor, Middlesex County, with a look at of the New York City skyline sparkling past her bedroom window. “I really do not like likely down the effortless route.” 

She arrives from an engineering family: The two mother and father have engineering backgrounds and her youthful brother, Jason, is a sophomore in the mechanical engineering program at Rowan. 

While trying to make a decision which university to go to, Repmann built an quick perception on college researcher Dr. Mary Staehle during a pay a visit to to Henry M. Rowan School of Engineering. 

“Lauren arrived in with a listing of concerns and a pretty outlined profile of what she was on the lookout for in a college and a biomedical engineering software,” Staehle recalled. ”And it wound up fitting Rowan pretty much completely. We were in a position to offer you every thing she was on the lookout for in a faculty, in addition to elements she didn’t know she was seeking for.”

“She joined my lab in her 1st semester,” explained Staehle. “That’s fairly uncommon for an undergraduate pupil.”

All through her several years at Rowan, Repmann pursued research reports in Staehle’s lab on the toxicity of different chemical compounds on the nervous process and was amongst the co-authors with Staehle on a paper inspecting the developmental neurotoxicity brought on by chemical substances. When experiments failed, she took what she realized and utilized it to the upcoming undertaking. 

“We learned a large amount from failure,” Staehle said. “She was ready to place that details forward to some of our new undertakings in the lab.” 

Pupils have the option to perform on significant investigation projects at Rowan funded by Nationwide Institutes of Wellness, the Countrywide Science Foundation, sector and some others, claimed Dr. Mark Byrne, founding office head and professor of biomedical engineering.

“Great learners like Lauren excel in this setting and can make a sizeable influence as they grow into main engineers,” Byrne stated. 

During the top of the pandemic lockdown, she joined her father on the producing frontlines, making components for professional medical products. Previous yr, she landed a summer months exploration fellowship at the College of Florida.  

Also component of the Honors College or university, Repmann mentored first-year engineering college students, labored as an admissions ambassador for Rowan and served as president of the Rowan College IEEE Ladies in Engineering Club. She also developed the Rowan College 3D Printing Club from scratch, Staehle pointed out. It was recognized as the University’s top rated scholar business very last yr. 

“Not only did she style and design this firm to educate and teach Rowan learners with 3D printing, but she produced confident that they have been philanthropic in people pursuits, immediately impacting the bordering communities,” Staehle reported. 

Her lecturers and approach to studying impressed Dr. Erik Brewer, who teaches in Rowan’s Biomedical Engineering Section.  

“She has a real perception of wanting to increase,” Brewer claimed. “If I had an employee like this, this is somebody I could rely on to give an assignment.” 

At Merck, Repmann is working on the complex operations group, supporting the producing system of an critical vaccine. She’ll be in that function till August 2023, when she’ll move on to the second of three rotations at an additional Merck web-site, maybe overseas. 

“I want to make this planet superior for all the generations that are likely to occur soon after me,” Repmann explained. “I know which is a cliche reply, but that’s what I want to commit my everyday living to. I’m seriously enthusiastic about every little thing that will come together that journey.”