Emily Burns

At school I got involved in a lot of engineering projects, from building an electric racing car and competing at Goodwood to helping Network Rail prevent the theft of copper signalling cables. I found the medical side of engineering really interesting and realised it had excellent prospects for a very rewarding career.

Medical engineering is an extremely specialised subject – it is hard to find undergraduate degrees that focus on this side of engineering. So choosing the University of Leeds was very easy, especially when I considered the whole student experience and the strong medical links within the region.

Although this is a specialist course, it still gave me a wide perspective of the subject, primarily through working on projects with real relevance to current medical engineering problems. I got to work on rehabilitation and surgical technologies and helped surgeons to research hip implantation techniques.

Now I work for DePuy Synthes in Leeds as a Test Engineer. As part of the company’s new product development, I get to test a wide range of joint implants and instruments. My time at Leeds, and the relevant research experience it provided, fully prepared me for this role; a great start to a career in practical, problem-solving engineering.