DELUCIA LEPORE

Reflection from Duke university

​

During my time at Duke, I’ve had the opportunity to work on several project teams, which has allowed me to hone not only my technical skills, but also my leadership abilities. I’m very interested in mastering product development, product management, and design thinking. I really enjoy the idea of creating products that help everyday people better carry out tasks in their everyday lives. 

​

I believe that one of the reasons why I am a successful engineer is because I have strong leadership skills, and I can effectively strategize swift solutions to various technical and operational issues. I have experience managing projects through my hands-on engineering classes, where I have been able to lead my team through several rounds of research, product design, prototyping, and data visualization. My favorite projects have been working on a medical device for the Duke Hospital which we called a Temperature Controlled Prosthetic Skin for Medical Manikins, as well as an independent study I completed with Duke Master’s in Engineering Management students, where we created a consumer product to solve airport troubles called TagLug: Luggage Scale, Tracker, and Tag.

​

No matter what project I’m working on, I have learned that I frequently become energized by the people around me. When I see a problem, or any inefficiency, it’s in my nature to try and rally the troops to come up with a swift solution. This is what gravitated me towards the field of engineering, and specifically what helped me decide to combine my education with business and Innovation & Entrepreneurship – a passion for brainstorming, iterating, and ultimately solving the problems around me. I believe this is also why during my undergraduate career I was dedicated to working for a medical device start up called PROTECT3D, which makes 3D printed medical protective devices for athletes. During my tenure at PROTECT3D I worked as an engineering intern, a manufacturing engineer for the 3D printing facility, and completed a product development independent study where I worked alongside the Duke Men’s Club Soccer team to design a TPMS lattice-based shin guard.

​

I want to highlight my experience at PROTECT3D because I’ve had the opportunity to learn a lot about the importance of intertwining operations with engineering by working to improve the company’s customer experience. Within this role, I had the opportunity to help restructure the user interface and revamp our online presence, which has since further sparked my interest in business technology and digital products. This experience helped me realize that no matter how revolutionary a product can be, it truly means nothing if the purpose and use isn’t intuitive to the customer.

​

As I enter the workforce, I hope to gain leadership experience working on several product lifecycles – specifically as it relates to ideation and brainstorming, product development, product management, and consumer experience. I really enjoy diving deep into problems and trying to figure out if there is some way it can be made easier that is intuitive, ergonomic, and safe, and efficient for the end-user.