Team Feature: Brian McGrath Design Engineer
Throughout 2021 we will be featuring members of our small but perfectly formed team. Going behind their bio on the website to find out a little bit more about each person. We hope you enjoy reading this mini-interview with Brian McGrath Design Engineer.
Why did you choose Biomedical/Biomechanical Engineering as your career path?
From a young age I was always obsessed with understanding how products worked. I remember, when I was a child, I used to steal screwdrivers from my fathers’ workshop to disassemble all my toys and figure out how they functioned. After I learned how my toys functioned, I moved onto repairing broken ones and creating new toys from the parts of old ones. As I got older, I became interested in applying this engineering curiosity to the medical field. The potential to create a device that solves a medical problem and could be used to treat patients around the world is fascinating to me.
What do you see as the biggest challenges coming up in your field of expertise?
Medical devices are rapidly becoming more sophisticated and elaborate. This is brilliant as it opens a wealth of new possibilities for improving current treatments and developing new ones. However, this increased product complexity leads to increased hours and effort in the design and development of the product. As products become more complex the teams that develop them must change too. Future project teams will need to be larger and have multiple experts in multiple fields to ensure the development of safe and effective products. This could also lead to further challenges in communication and collaboration.
What do you enjoy doing outside of your time at work (pre-Covid)?
Above anything else I like to stay healthy and active. I love running and I took part in the Cork city marathon in 2019, something my knees are still trying to recover from! During the summer months I enjoy playing pitch and putt and when I’m feeling a little more confident, I sometimes attempt a round of golf. I’ve been training and competing in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for several years now, I really enjoy the competitiveness of a 1v1 sport like that. In recent years I have also developed a keen interest in cooking, which is surprising considering as a child I was an incredibly picky eater.