Linda Braddon, biomedical engineer

What I do

Linda Braddon has seen the newest cutting edges of medical technology before most people know they even exist.

The biomedical engineer has a doctoral degree from Georgia Tech and owns Secure BioMed Evaluations, which critically examines some of the latest medical devices.

“We work for start-up biotech companies and the folks who fund them,” Braddon said.

For the funders, usually venture capitalists or financial “angels,” 39-year-old Braddon is the resource for technical due diligence, she said. That’s financial-speak for making sure that something will do what its developers say it will.

As the expert, Braddon can help a funder determine whether a device is just “very sexy or is commercially viable.”

“We make sure they are technically sound and find where the holes are,” she said. “The people with the money don’t have a background in these specific scientific fields.”

For the tech start-ups, Braddon will see a device five to seven years before it is ready for the market.

“We help do testing on the device” to make sure it does what it’s supposed to as well as meets U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards or their equivalent in Europe and around the world.

The company can also advise what equipment and staff are needed to perform the tests. Many start-ups, she said, don’t have the money or engineers to build and run their own testing labs, “so we come on board and run the tests for them,” usually at labs she contracts with. “We serve as their outsourced engineering staff,” Braddon said.

Some of the devices and products she has worked on include heart valves, vascular grafts and orthopedic implants. She also has tested diagnostic equipment and the bonding strengths between different materials.

After performing all the tests, Braddon and her staff of one full-time and two part-time workers, plus several contracted experts, must write reports to explain it all to the business managers in language they will understand.

“We act as translators from the geeks to the suits,” said Jennifer Rosenthal, Secure BioMed’s vice president of operations.

“If I say ‘Poisson’s ratio’ one more time, they’re going to kill me,” Braddon added. For nonengineers, Poisson’s ratio is a measure of compressibility, she said.

Much of Braddon’s testing focuses on meeting FDA standards, she said, “making sure the engineers are doing what is required,” yet not doing costly, unnecessary tests.

“It’s easy to do testing you don’t need to do,” she said. “We’re good at making sure they’re doing the right tests.”

But there’s also a problem-solving part of the job, she said.

“We get to figure out a lot of cool things,” Braddon said. “We’re often hired to resolve a pretty complicated problem,” such as how to cut an unusual new material, for example.

What got me interested in this

“I was good in math and science in high school,” Braddon said.

In college, she aimed toward medical school. By the time she graduated, and after a summer program at Georgia Tech, she decided to focus on engineering. “I loved the research end more than the clinical,” she said.

In graduate school, Braddon worked on tissue engineering, getting corporate funding for her doctoral work.

But after graduation in 1997, she decided that rather than work for one company, she could work for many companies on many smaller projects if she were in business for herself as a consultant.

Best part of my job

“Every job is different,” she said. “Every client brings a different challenge. We learn cool, new things.”

Most challenging part

It’s bridging the gap between the engineering departments and business departments of her client companies, “so everyone knows we’re all on the same team,” Braddon said.

In addition, she said, gaining FDA approval for a device also involves “process validation,” meaning that the tests prove what they’re supposed to prove.

What people don’t know about my job

“I’m not the classic engineer,” Braddon said. “I communicate well, I’m easy to work with, and I have the ability to cross cultures — scientists and suits.”

What keeps me going

“It’s extraordinarily fun,” she said.

She also knows that, as a consultant, “Any day could be my last day if I don’t prove myself. … We don’t want pleased clients, we want wowed clients.”

Preparation needed for this job

“You need a technical background,” Braddon said. “Experience is huge.”

It’s important for the person heading a consulting firm to have the credentials, such as a doctorate in engineering, she added. “I would not be hired by 80 percent of my clients without a Ph.D.,” she said.

Credibility, she said, comes from both experience and credentials.

In addition to engineering expertise, “You have to put on a presentation that wows but doesn’t confuse,” she said.

While many engineers need a professional engineering license, bioengineering does not require one, Braddon said.

Braddon has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Mercer University and her master’s and doctorate in mechanical engineering, with a specialization in biomedical engineering, from Georgia Tech.

- By Karl W. Ritzler, for ajcjobs. Got an interesting job that you love? E-mail your story to jobseditor@ajc.com.

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