News

February Alumni Spotlight - Hayley McClintock '16

February 1, 2018
Kabisa Baughen
Interview

Hayley recently published a first author paper in Science Robotics.  This work was summarized in a news feature by the Wyss Institute.

1. What was your first position (job or grad school) immediately after graduation from Brown?

My first position after Brown was at the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory working under Dr. Rob Wood as a research assistant. I worked on improving flapping kinematics for a centimeter-scale flapping and gliding robot made using PC-MEMS manufacturing techniques.

2. What is your current position and when did you start this position?

I still work at this position in the Microrobotics lab and have moved on to make a pop-up mechanism for an implantable ventricular device and a millimeter-scale parallel robot called a Delta robot which can be used for applications such as tremor compensation in microsurgery. I'm also working on a project that uses soft actuators for surgical devices.

3. Tell us about your background. When did you graduate from Brown? What has your career path been like since graduating from Brown? What made you choose your employer/position?

I graduated in 2016 and completed an honors thesis with Dr. Wong on 3D printed microfluidic channels for studying the tumor microenvironment. I also did an independent study with Professor Breuer on a robotic wing, which is how I was able to transition to working at the Microrobotics lab. I chose that position because I find the manufacturing processes used there to be really interesting and the applications they use these processes for are also really cool and impactful.

4. How did your experience at Brown help you find your first position after graduation?

My experience at Brown helped me find this position because it gave me a diverse engineering background that helps me work in a research environment that is very multidisciplinary. It also helped me be able to network and find a job.

5. What experiences and/or personal qualities would you look for if you were in the position to hire new graduates from Brown?

I would look for someone with a strong engineering background that is also creative in their problem solving style.

6. What is your current position? On a typical day (or week) in your position, what do you do? What are the toughest challenges you face? What is the most rewarding part of your job?

On a typical day, I'm usually working on a design of a device that I'm working on or fabricating the device. When first starting a project, this usually takes up most of my time and goes on for a couple of months. Once I have a stable design, I then work on testing the device using image tracking, force sensors, etc.; whatever tests make sense for the application of the device. After all the testing is done, the results usually get turned into a paper, either for a journal or for a conference. It's a very collaborative work environment, so I'm usually working with 1-2 other people who help me and I also take time to help out other people with their projects as well.

7. Are there any courses at Brown that you would recommend taking as preparation?

I would recommend taking control classes and circuit classes, as well as any class that gives you a good background in kinematics and dynamics. Having a solid background with coding, mainly Matlab, is also useful.

8. If you had it to do all over again, what would you do differently?

If I had to do it over again differently, I probably would have tried to take more of the classes that I previously mentioned and tried to have gotten more experience with robotics earlier. But having a varied engineering background has come in useful, so I think that the path that I've taken has worked out alright for me.