Students and faculty in the ż Innovation Scholars team. Photo provided
Each year, ż students develop hands-on research and professional skills in . In this program, undergraduate students from various multidisciplinary backgrounds at Minnesota private universities and colleges engage in research on medical products in the early stages of development. Led by graduate students from local private institutions, the undergraduate teams culminate months of research with presentations to Mayo Clinic Ventures and at biomedical companies associated with Medical Alley or NASA.
On February 28, four ż’s students, Lalisee Burka ’26 (chemistry and biology), Helen McKinnon ’26 (marketing and economics), Cheyenne Oja ’26 (biology), and Sarah Wangen ’27 (exercise and sport science; financial economics), concluded months of research with a presentation to Mayo Clinic Ventures. The ż’s faculty who supported the scholars were Kellie Agrimson, PhD, assistant professor of biology and Innovation Scholars campus liaison; Lacey Chu, PhD, assistant professor of economics; Tami McDonald, PhD, associate professor of biology; and Jeff Moretz, assistant professor of business administration. The team lead was Alfredo Karduss, graduate student from the University of St. Thomas’ M.S. Business Analytics program.
“Innovation Scholars are some of the most driven and creative students on campus. Seeing how they tackle real-world problems with fresh ideas and collaborative energy is incredible,” says Agrimson. “They’re not just learning, they’re making a real impact, and it’s exciting to be part of that journey.”
ż’s Innovation Scholar McKinnon, who plans to go into either business or marketing analytics in the future, provided a window into her experience in the program.
Helen McKinnon ’26 (photo provided)
Can you describe your team’s project and how you got involved?
The base of our research was on commercialization and business aspects of the product: trying to see if it was profitable, if it would have good returns on investment, what size company to try and promote this product to.
I was informed of my nomination by Dr. Chu from ż’s economics department. I knew that my portion in this project would be mostly business and econ because that's what I'm studying. I wanted to join the Innovation Scholars program because it would give me real-world experience that applies to the concepts I’m learning in the classroom.
What was the timeline like for the program?
In October, we met for orientation, an eight-hour day at Mayo Clinic Ventures, just going through the base of the project: what they are looking for, what we need to do, and letting us know the priorities of the work we'd be doing.
After that, between October and January, we had meetings once or twice a week where we discussed the work we had done in the past week and came up with new assignments for the following week. Once we hit January, we started working on our 20-page research paper. Between January and February, it was mainly presentation work. We had all our base research done and then practiced the presentation.
What was the biggest challenge for you in this experience?
I'd say teamwork and collaboration is always something that's going to be difficult, especially when it's a new group of people. It was my first time working with the other students on my team. So, it was interesting getting to know their work styles, seeing how we all combined. I think we merged well! Alfredo, our lead, did a great job taking in the things that we were talking about and the challenges that we were having and making it more of a straight path to the end point.
What was your favorite part of this experience?
Definitely getting the presentation done. It was nerve-wracking sitting in the room waiting to present our findings as other people were presenting to the specialists. It feels really good to get it off your chest and get the research that you've been working on for so long out there!
What was the presentation like?
Our group lead pushed and facilitated us in making the presentation understandable to a basic level so that anybody sitting in the room — if you were in the program, if you were a surgeon, or if you were just another student that was sitting in there — would understand what we were talking about.
The response was great. We had so many questions at the end, which can sometimes make you think, “Oh, people didn’t understand” — but questions mean they do understand! It was good to hear them because they helped us think through additional aspects and ideas.
Then we had a debrief with our team manager, who's from Mayo Clinic Ventures, who told us, “You guys did so well, this was a great presentation. This is by far one of the greatest ones I've seen.”
What are you most proud of in this project?
I was most proud of the work that I did in business analytics. I was looking at a lot of marketing parameters for the patent, and that's really hard to do when you don't actually have numbers for a project or for a product. It's a patent — it's not actually out there yet or actually designed. It's all predicted. I had to figure out how to ballpark a revenue and then a revenue after five years. It was definitely hard, but it was the most rewarding feeling after I was done with it.
What's next for you?
Since I'm a junior now, I am going to use the experience I had to apply for internships, put it on my resume, and then after graduation, find a career in analytics, because that's something I've always wanted to do, and this project definitely sealed and confirmed that for me.
What’s one takeaway for you after completing this project?
I can say that at first when I joined, I thought, “Innovation Scholars isn’t something that I should be considering. I have basic knowledge of science, but I'm not in the medical field.”
But I learned that you have a bigger impact than you think. Because even without a biology or chemistry background like the other students had, I still put in a good portion of the work. And then you start to realize, especially on orientation day, that many of the people there are accounting, financial majors, econ majors, and business majors. You do belong. There is a reason why you're being nominated for the project, whether you think you should be a part of it or not.