Recent ChE Grad Reflects Back on NU Experiences

Name: Alexander Colville

Major: Chem­ical engineering

Campus activ­i­ties: Co-​​founder and inau­gural pres­i­dent of the North­eastern Bio­med­ical Engi­neering Society; under­grad­uate rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the Bio­engi­neering Chair Search Com­mittee; pres­i­dent of the Amer­ican Insti­tute of Chem­ical Engi­neers; chem­ical engi­neering mentor; and member of the North­eastern Busi­ness Advi­sory Club

Also com­pleted an eight-​​week research exchange pro­gram with the Uni­ver­sitat Rovira i Vir­gili in Tar­ragona, Spain; the nanopar­ticle drug delivery research cul­mi­nated with his co-​​authorship of two papers in Lang­muir and the Journal of Chem­ical Physics

What will be your best memory from Northeastern?

I think one of my favorite things I accom­plished here, together with a couple of my remark­able friends, was helping to form the Depart­ment of Bio­engi­neering. This team effort started back in my freshman year with the for­ma­tion of the North­eastern Bio­med­ical Engi­neering Society, a stu­dent group, and cre­ation of mock under­grad­uate cur­riculum to present to admin­is­tra­tors. It was just the process of giving the world-​​class bio­engi­neering research already taking place at North­eastern a home and paving the way for under­grad­u­ates inter­ested in bio­engi­neering to thrive as Huskies.

Now here I am in my senior year and it has all come to fruition. Thanks to the tire­less work of pro­fessor Lee Makowski, asso­ciate pro­fessor Anand Astha­giri, and count­less other fac­ulty and admin­is­tra­tors, the Depart­ment of Bio­engi­neering is a reality with a great deal of momentum to become one of the pre­mier pro­grams in the world. With some addi­tional invest­ment, it has the poten­tial to even fur­ther accel­erate Northeastern’s impres­sive growth and posi­tion as a leader in the Boston health­care hub. That’s def­i­nitely some­thing I can look back on and be happy about.

What was your most sig­nif­i­cant learning expe­ri­ence at Northeastern?

I learned the impor­tance of problem solving and staying tech­ni­cally sound. Those are two core fun­da­men­tals in engi­neering that my bril­liant chem­ical engi­neering pro­fes­sors have impressed upon me again and again throughout my four years here. You can mem­o­rize facts and details all day, but if you don’t under­stand the larger con­cepts behind what is going on your knowl­edge is use­less. It is imper­a­tive to have a sys­tem­atic way of attacking prob­lems in order to find an optimal solution.

What were your co-​​op expe­ri­ences like?

My two co-​​ops were on dif­ferent ends of the biotech spec­trum. My first one was at Selecta Bio­sciences and it was true research and devel­op­ment, focusing on for­mu­lating nanopar­ticle vac­cines. I learned a lot about the nature of biotech star­tups, the patience required with research, and the extreme amount of effort it takes to get a dis­cov­ered drug to reg­u­la­tory approval.

On my second co-​​op, I worked as an asso­ciate con­sul­tant at Putnam Asso­ciates building strategic rec­om­men­da­tions for top global bio­phar­ma­ceu­tical clients in such fields as cancer immunotherapy and vac­cines. This involved port­folio strategy, market access, cor­po­rate strategy, and a lot of research and mod­eling. At Putnam, I learned a great deal about the deci­sions biotech exec­u­tives have to make on a daily basis and the tools they use to make intel­li­gent choices. There is great power in the ability to clarify very com­plex busi­ness cli­mates into palat­able deci­sions. The problem solving skills I learned from chem­ical engi­neering applied a great deal more than I ever would’ve imagined.

What’s your advice for next year’s incoming class?

Get involved with what you want to do early on. If you are pas­sionate about some­thing, go out there and I guar­antee there will be a bunch of other stu­dents pas­sionate about it, too. It’s just a matter of finding them.

What are your post-​​graduation plans?

For the summer, I’ll be working in David Sinclair’s lab at Har­vard Med­ical School con­ducting research on small mol­e­cules that can slow the pace of aging. In the fall, I’ll be returning to my second co-​​op employer, Putnam Asso­ciates, to work full time as an asso­ciate con­sul­tant to bio­pharma. My long-​​term goal is to tackle human aging and age-​​related disease.