Healthcare Certificate Grads Make Their Mark

Enrollment in the MIT Healthcare Certificate program has skyrocketed during the past academic year. In 2020, 34 students enrolled and 12 received the certificate. For 2021, 65 registered and 30 students completed the requirements. The students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and programs across MIT. We will be highlighting Healthcare Certificate graduates past, current and future on this website.  We start with three of our students from the classes of 2018, 2020 and 2021.

Evan Humphrey (SCM ’18) was the first person in the one-year supply chain management master’s program to complete the Healthcare Certificate. Humphrey matriculated at MIT after more than six years in the US Army. When he left, he was the Company Commander/Director of Operations at Fort Carson, CO.

Humphrey chose to enroll in the Healthcare Certificate program to explore the industry since he had a long-standing interest in that space. Aside from knowing he wasn’t going to pursue a medical degree, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. For him, the Certificate Program turned out to be the perfect way to get a broad view that would help him narrow his focus.
For his first job after MIT, he landed at Takeda Pharmaceuticals where he is a Senior Program Manager in vaccine manufacturing.At MIT, Humphrey enjoyed being around so many other people with backgrounds different from his. Along with the broad coursework, his fellow students providing insights into various parts of the healthcare system. “Every serious job opportunity started with a connection from someone in the Healthcare Certificate”, he commented. In the end, he accepted a position at a company and in an area that speaks to him and which he enjoys immensely.

Gaby Lamas-Oporto (SCM ‘20) added the Healthcare Certificate to her Master’s Program in Supply Chain Management. This sort of ambition and hard work is typical of Lamas. She won an award from AWESOME (Achieving Women’s Excellence in Supply Chain Operations Management and Education), which covered half of her tuition for the year-long program at MIT. Prior to MIT, Lamas worked at Johnson & Johnson in a variety of supply chain and engineering roles. After attending MIT, she returned to J&J and, combining her supply chain and healthcare interests, pivoted to the role of E2E Digital Supply Chain Lead in Medical Devices.

Lamas is also the co-founder of a Colombia-based healthcare startup called Heal Room, Inc. The company is a telehealth platform connecting patients with specialists without the difficulties usually experienced by patients seeking care in Latin America.
Lamas called out Healthcare Lab as a favorite class. The chance to hear from leaders talking about the current healthcare landscape and the opportunity to ask questions was especially helpful as she determined next steps with Johnson and Johnson and as she and her partner are establishing their start up in Latin America.

Eric Yang (MBA ’21) is a member of the newest group of graduates, who finished the entire academic year online. For Yang, the Certificate was a natural progression from his BA in biology at the University of Pennsylvania and his subsequent consulting work for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies while employed at Putnam Associates.

Yang enthusiastically dove into the healthcare opportunities at MIT. He was co-conference lead for the Sloan Healthcare and BioInnovations Conference this past February. For the first time, the event was held entirely virtually due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, Yang, his co-leads, and the 35-person conference team saw this change as an opportunity rather than a setback. Together, they took full advantage of the virtual format to expand the content offered and geographic reach of the conference to new levels.

The classes that Yang enjoyed the most were finance and economics courses that gave him insight to the particulars of those fields as they apply to healthcare. Yang will be heading to New York City after graduation and will be returning to Putnam as a Senior Consultant. He believes that the course work he completed at MIT will give him a deeper insight into the business decisions his clients face.