Community Spotlights are special features to introduce you to the amazing folks transforming manufacturing as part of the Tulip Community.
Meet Maggie Bradley, a soon-to-be biology graduate from Georgia Tech with a knack for problem-solving and a passion for making an impact. From research labs in Atlanta to a biotech internship in Boston, Maggie has proven that with the right tools, like Tulip, and a strong curiosity, you can tackle engineering challenges. “It’s all about mindset, troubleshooting, seeing the full picture, and making connections. Georgia Tech’s still teaching me that, engineering degree or not.”
An early passion for health and medicine
From an early age, Maggie was fascinated by the intersection of science, health, and innovation. She loved biology but was just as captivated by the big-picture questions behind medical advancements. “I always knew I wanted to do something with health and medicine,” she explains. “But I wasn’t sure being a doctor was the answer for me. I love creating new, impactful things. Going beyond playing symptom detective for one patient, I was always asking myself, ‘What do these symptoms really mean? How could we solve these problems for a whole population?’”
This curiosity spurred her to become President of her high school’s chapter of Future Health Professionals (HOSA) and explore research through her AP Research capstone course, a two-year program where she honed skills in academic analysis and tackled an independent biology project. When it came time to pick a university, Georgia Tech was the clear choice. “I’m from Woodstock, Georgia, about an hour outside the city, and I’ve always loved Atlanta,” she says. “I also knew I wanted to do research, and the opportunities at Georgia Tech ultimately stood out to me.”
Maggie decided to major in Biology and picked up minors in Biomedical Engineering and Health, Medicine, and Society, carving her own unique path. “The classes I’ve loved the most were ones where I can learn about a broad spectrum of things and apply them to different situations,” she explains. One of her favorite classes was Stem Cell Policy and Ethics. “We not only learned the science behind stem cells, something I’ve always been interested in, but also how the government regulates their use in health settings. My professor had experience with both stem cell and policy research, so interacting with someone from both sides was really interesting.”
Another standout course from her Biomedical Engineering minor was Health Reach. “We take complex STEM concepts, figure out ways to make them more tangible through an activity, and get out in the community doing our activities with hospital patients or kids in underprivileged areas to get them excited about science,” she says. “It’s like using engineering skills to inspire others!”
This background has given Maggie a broad canvas to more deeply explore medicine, research, and industry, a flexibility she’d soon test.
Into the research lab
Once at Georgia Tech, Maggie wasted no time diving into the research she’d been drawn to in high school. “I was in a research lab starting my freshman year,” she says, though she realized her first lab was not the best fit for her. “It was more computationally based, bioinformatics research, which is so interesting, but it didn’t suit my skill set.” She decided to look for another research opportunity, and at the end of her sophomore year, she joined a platelet biology lab. “I was really drawn to this lab because of the mentorship focus of the team and also being able to work more directly with a health-focused problem. Platelets are implicated in heart attacks and strokes and many different types of disease, and being able to at least, in a small way, contribute to research in this space was interesting to me.”
Nearly two years later, she’s been tackling the same project, studying platelet biology with flow cytometry methods. “It can be difficult when you're studying something like cellular heterogeneity because you can never know if the interesting result you're seeing one day is a result of the biology, or if the result occurred due to a technical mistake. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to perfect our method. It’s an iterative process of collecting data, analyzing the results, and going back to the drawing board.”
Seeking fast-paced innovation and a taste of Industry
Maggie’s research work is meticulous and requires a lot of time to see results. “I love academic research, but it can move slowly. I wanted to explore what working in industry was like. I wanted to go to a place where everything is fast-paced and I could see, even during my short time as an intern, the true change happening for the health field and play a part in that change.” Maggie set out to explore her options.
When she interviewed at a leading biotech company in Boston, she felt a connection with the company values during the interview, and she saw an opportunity to step beyond the lab bench, tackle real-world problems and see results fast. She took the role and joined their Research Operations team, primarily in support of the company’s delivery science team, a vital group to the company that develops methods to ensure therapies can effectively reach targets in the body. “Even though I didn't have a lot of experience in operations, I went into the job eager to see the full picture of what goes on every day and not necessarily sit at a lab bench all day doing all the same things that I do at school.”
Her task for the summer was to help this team improve their inventory tracking process and keep all the equipment in their lab stocked. “Even if simple things like pipet tips or media bottles ran out, it could delay critical projects for other teams at the company".
Transforming lab operations with Tulip
Maggie had little experience with software tools before jumping in with Tulip. “I’m a biology person. I don’t work with computers ever,” she jokes. “But one of my mentors at the company said, ‘Here’s Tulip, just play around in it and see what you can figure out.’ Within one week, I made a mini-inventory management system, with my own table database and QR codes that I could scan with the barcode reader.”
She then began sitting down with various people in the lab, shadowing their work, and finding areas to help automate their inventory management processes. She naturally learned the iterative process of collecting feedback and getting stakeholders hands-on experience with the apps and making changes bit by bit to create solutions that solved their pain points.
“By the end of the summer, I was a Tulip expert. I was working with it every day and honestly it was really fun. I was like, ‘I'm making these apps and it's going to make everyone's life easier and they don't even know it yet!’”
In total, Maggie created a fleet of 17 different apps to manage laboratory inventory. Her standout creation was the “Search Shelf” app. “You scan an item, and it shows how many items with that same ID are available across inventory in multiple spots. So maybe the item on your shelf is empty, but you could go to another lab and find it there.”
Leaving a last legacy in a short few months
For Maggie, the highlight of her internship was the ownership she was able to have over her project and the sense of accomplishment in making a digital solution that will be impactful for the company long after her internship ended. A day that stood out for Maggie was when she got to present her work to the Tulip Team, her key stakeholders, and the company leadership.
“I led three presentations. I was trusted to lead those presentations and talk for myself and answer questions and be an equal member of the company even though I was just an intern. I did a walkthrough of the lab, demonstrating all the apps in action. I explained the work I had completed, how I troubleshooted through obstacles, and passed the baton to the operations team to carry on the project once I had to go back to school. I was able to lead the discussions throughout the day, and I had autonomy to speak on behalf of the company. I remember going home that day and being just overcome with joy. Everyone gave me my flowers, and that was my moment.”
Her Tulip inventory solution didn’t just help her direct operations team, but it also sparked broader inspiration and adoption at the company.
“After my demonstration, people on different teams throughout the company would ask, ‘Could I make a Tulip app that does this?’ I’d say, ‘Probably in 20 minutes!’”
Maggie still talks to her manager and mentors from her internship, and is happy to report that her Tulip apps are still used every day. “It made me really happy that I could, within the summer, learn something totally new, make something I was really proud of, and then leave that legacy behind even though I was only there for a couple months.”
The journey ahead
Reflecting on her college journey, Maggie’s advice to her freshman self is simple: “Take the time to cherish your relationships and where you are at. You don't have to work 20 hours a week in a part-time student job, be a medical scribe, work in the lab, and be on the executive board of your organization. You can join the fun club that may not have any real career implications for you just because it's fun. You can have a hobby.”
Maggie has learned to balance her own “grindset” and has spent her senior year exploring Atlanta with her roommates, working out at Orange Theory, and watching musicals at the Fox Theater.
With graduation just around the corner, Maggie is bound for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a two-year post-baccalaureate fellowship. “I’ll be researching sickle cell disease treatments, with the goal of making an injection for in-body gene therapy so bone marrow transplants aren’t needed,” she explains. “In disadvantaged communities or countries without big hospitals, bone marrow transplants are not feasible, so the project is grounded in expanding treatment accessibility.” She’s excited to move to the DC area and dive into research with clinical bite. “Hopefully by the end of the fellowship, I’ll know if I want a PhD, MD, or to head to industry,” she says.
For Maggie, the journey ahead is full of adventure and excitement, embracing mistakes as part of the learning process. Armed with the experience from her internship and Tulip project, Maggie’s passion for impact, boundless curiosity, and bold spirit promises a vibrant future.
Join us on Tulip Community to ask Maggie about her journey, her favorite spots to explore in Atlanta, or just to say hi!