Being an Engineer
Being an Engineer
S7E25 Yesenia Avellaneda | Engineering, Medicine, and Manufacturing Leadership
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Yesenia Avellaneda is an engineering leader whose career sits at the intersection of innovation, operations, and impact. Currently a Senior Project Engineer within Global Operations at Abbott, she has built a reputation for turning complex ideas into scalable, high-performing manufacturing systems. From leading New Product Introduction (NPI) efforts to executing international production transfers and launching entirely new facilities, Yesenia thrives where strategy meets execution.
Her work has had measurable impact. She has led capital projects exceeding $5 million, driven production efficiency improvements, and implemented Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma methodologies to enhance quality and throughput. In one role, she helped boost line productivity by 200%, all while overseeing teams of 60+ personnel and ensuring compliance with rigorous FDA and regulatory standards . Her ability to align cross-functional teams—from product development to operations—has made her a key driver of successful product launches and operational excellence.
Yesenia’s academic foundation reflects her human-centered approach to engineering. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Human Physiology from the University of Oregon and later completed a master’s in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Portland. This unique combination allows her to bridge the gap between clinical needs and engineering solutions—an essential skill in the medical device industry.
Beyond her technical and leadership accomplishments, Yesenia is deeply committed to giving back. As Regional Vice President for SHPE Region 6 and a longtime advocate for underrepresented communities in STEM, she actively works to create inclusive pathways for future engineers. She’s also an experienced speaker, sharing insights on leadership, career growth, and navigating STEM as a first-generation professional.
In this conversation, Yesenia brings a rare perspective—one that combines hands-on engineering, large-scale operational leadership, and a mission-driven approach to making a broader impact in both industry and community.
Yesenia’s microphone had a slight delay during recording, so you may notice some minor timing lags throughout the conversation. We apologize for the delays and appreciate your patience.
LINKS:
Yesenia Avellaneda LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yesenia-avellaneda/
https://shpe.org/
Aaron Moncur, host
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Sometimes I think we don't, when we're trying to solve things, you are under pressure, and you're trying to do those things that you don't think about, you know, how can you don't see the whole picture, if that makes sense. I think when you're more calm and not in a stress environment, and when you, when you are thinking, you know, just more out loud without having the stressor, you're able to be, to you know, to get the answers that you need.
Aaron Moncur:Hello, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Being an Engineer podcast. Today, we're joined by Yesenia Avellanera, a project engineer in a senior project engineer in global operations at Abbott. Yesenia brings a powerful blend of biomedical engineering expertise and real-world manufacturing leadership, having led multimillion dollar capital projects, scaled production lines, and built new manufacturing operations from the ground up. She's also a passionate advocate for diversity in STEM, currently serving as regional vice president for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Region Six, where she's helping shape the next generation of engineering leaders. Yesenia, thank you so much for joining us today.
Yesenia Avellaneda:Thank you, Erin, for having me. I'm super excited to talk a lot more about my life and also share some knowledge that I have.
Aaron Moncur:Fantastic. All right, we're going to start with a few rapid fire questions. I'll ask you, and don't think too much about the answers, just say whatever comes to mind. Ready?
Yesenia Avellaneda:Sounds good.
Aaron Moncur:Okay. First question: open source tools or proprietary software,
Yesenia Avellaneda:open source. is
Aaron Moncur:best practice helpful or limiting.
Yesenia Avellaneda:It's helpful, all
Aaron Moncur:right. And last one, if you had to explain your job to a 10 year old, what would you say?
Yesenia Avellaneda:Communication
Aaron Moncur:excellent. All right, great. Thank you for going through that with me. Now we're going to jump into the meat and potatoes of this episode. First question, what made you decide to become an engineer?
Yesenia Avellaneda:Yeah, that is a really good question. My pathway was a little different. I don't know. I guess it was not the regular pathway, in terms of I was initially a pre-med student, biology, human physiology degree at the University of Oregon, and engineering was not something I thought about. I'll be honest, I think my dad and I, we had a plan that I was going to be a doctor, you know, and that's all I thought about since, since I can remember. However, at my, it was my end of senior year at the University of Oregon. Yeah, no, I told my dad that I did not want to be a doctor, I wanted to explore different career pathways, because I always been super multifaceted, so I like doing so many things. It's not just engineering, or just, you know, one specific career. I'm involved in so many things. So, as I was thinking about, like, different careers, I remember going to a medical trip in Nicaragua, and in that medical trip, specific, I worked with prosthetic surgeons and also orthopedics, and also a team of biomedical engineers, and I remember how the combination of engineering and medicine was there, right, because I had prior knowledge on medicine or the human face and biology background. For me, I think that moment when I realized that there is much more to engineering. Sometimes you think engineering is just, you know, maybe the automotive or the aerospace industry, right? You, you are bucketed into specific ones, you don't think of many other career pathways that you can take. So that's when I realized, you know, I wanted to be an engineer, and, like, I said, it was something that I found out later on through different trips that I took, and also through thinking, right, what do I, how do I visualize my life? And I think it was a combination of engineering and medicine, and that's what biomedical engineering is.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, I'm curious. How did that conversation go with your father when he said, you know, actually I don't think I want to do this path that we've been planning forever. I'm interested in something else.
Yesenia Avellaneda:Yeah, no, it wasn't. It wasn't pretty, for sure. You know, I have always been very. How can I put it? I always did what my dad told me. That makes sense. I've never, I never broke any, any rules, so I never did anything to disappoint my dad or mom or my family. In a specific, I think that was the first disappointment, because my dad is an engineer, my brother is an engineer, most of my uncles are engineers, so I come from a background where my, you know, my parents went to school, and they were educated, so education was really important. In addition to that, you know, I always, we always had a plan, but I never really thought about until I was like 20 something, right, that I did not want that, so it wasn't. It wasn't easy for him to understand, to be honest. Sometimes when I go back home, he still, you know, mentions, you know, that it's not too late. I'm not old. Well, she's like, "You're still young, you could still, you know, go to medical school, because I did everything right, all my pre-med requirements, all of the classes. I think the only thing I needed to do is the MCAT and apply to medical school, so not an easy thing, but I think he understands it. Right at the end, a parent wants their kid to be happy, and I think he wants that for me. But at the same time, you know, every parent has expectations, and his expectations were just higher, you know. And in this one it is, but I am babying my fat way within, you know, within my field, and I'm, and I'm trying to continue achieving things, right? Maybe it's not medicine, but you know, it's engineering now.
Aaron Moncur:I heard a quote just a few days ago that I thought was so profound, and here's the quote: it's the freedom, the secret to happiness is freedom, the secret to freedom, courage, and it sounds to me like you had to have a fair amount of courage to approach your father, your family, and say, actually, I've decided to do something different, and I hope that's led to some freedom and a lot of happiness for you.
Yesenia Avellaneda:It has, and to be honest, it wasn't - it wasn't something like being an engineer, it wasn't something that I knew right away. I'll be honest, it was two years of two gap years where I was working in public health, where I was doing so many other things, I became a news reporter, like a sports reporter for, like, the Timbers, which is like a MLS club in Oregon for soccer. I did so many other things, I did pageants, and that year I decided to travel to many countries like, like, I'm telling you, I was very not confused, but I think I was finding my fat, and it was a two year, it took me two years to actually be like, hey, this is what I want to do next, so yeah, a lot of courage, and also a lot of, you know, being okay with not being okay, if that makes sense with the answers tend to be, and I think,
Aaron Moncur:yeah, I think it's great that you took all this time to really understand yourself and what was going to be most fulfilling for you, because I think a lot of us fall into that trap of there's a plan set for us, maybe there's a lot of intention behind it, maybe there's not a lot of intention behind it, but we kind of just go through the motion and, and become whatever that plan is, without, without thinking deeply about what is it that's going to make us happy and fulfilled. So, I love the fact that you took some, some time, you know, several years to really understand yourself and what was going to be best for you. I imagine that your, your medical background, the physiology, and the medicine classes that you took probably contributed to your path through biomedical engineering. How did that, how did the medical background impact your education through biomedical engineering,
Yesenia Avellaneda:yeah, no, 100% so the foundations of biomedical engineering is, you know, it's it's combined with within like the background of human physiology, biology, and having an understanding in that field, it was super easy to be able to, you know, relate the concepts to biomedical engineering, because, like, for example, currently I work within diabetes care, right, which is a disease within the pancreatic system, so that's something that it was, you know, it gave me so much benefit in school and also working right now, right, because I understand not just the engineering part, but just the human physiology of how the device connects to the body and how it's affecting right the human body and why it's necessary or beneficial to a patient or to a person, and yeah, having that. Background was so necessary, and I think that's why I also chose biomedical engineering, right, because I had that background, and I also, I have a respect for medicine and a love for medicine, but I wanted to, you know, combine and then do something else with my life.
Aaron Moncur:Terrific, terrific would you be able to share a little of what your day to day work looks like? So, you're working at Abbott, you mentioned you're working on diabetes devices, to the extent that you can share what what does a day to day look like for you?
Yesenia Avellaneda:Yeah, that's a good question. So, right now I work with NPIS, which is new product introduction. Right, what does that mean? It means that within our diabetes unit, right here at Abbott, we are introducing new products, right, new innovations into the field. So my job as a global operations is making sure that the sign transfer phase is ready, you know, for us to be able to launch this device, right? So, it's, it's a big team, like working from iteration of the device up to FDA approval. So, I work through the whole phase, right, with the team, but my, my job is to make sure that the operation team is ready to and it's prepared to be able to produce the device, right, and for that to happen, there are there is a lot of pieces that we have to do, so day to day it's a lot of meetings, I'll be honest, a lot of meetings with different teams, a lot of a lot of presentations and powerpoints, as a project engineer, for sure, but I think the biggest thing is just being able to understand what the deliverables are, and being able to present that to leadership, right. In addition to that, I get trouble a lot because the sites that were that I'm working with, they're in Europe, right, in England and Ireland, so I get to go there a lot, just to be able to see how everything is progressing, but, like, for example, today it was just a lot of meetings, a lot of presentations, and in a lot of, you know, talking to the teams within the sites and within, you know, the different key stakeholders holders that make this NPI, so, so, yeah, I think to describe it like as a PM, you're managing people, you're managing projects, you're doing a lot of presentations and PowerPoints, to be honest, but there is a lot more in, in it than that, for sure.
Aaron Moncur:You mentioned how important it is to understand what the core deliverables are, and to keep those core deliverables in the forefront of your mind. It can be easy to get distracted, right? Go down rabbit holes and spend time and money on this and that. Are there any tools or strategies that you use and have found helpful for a really being clear on what the deliverables are, and then b remembering them in your day to day work.
Yesenia Avellaneda:Yeah, no, I think it's a PM. There is so many tools that you can use, but the tools that I've used are so we use Smartsheets, which is a tool for timelines, right, to be able to put all of the key deliverables and milestones that you have to achieve in there. In addition to that, to be able to translate, you know, that project charter or that timeline into something more visual, I use Office Timeline Pro. It's another tool from PowerPoint, actually it's an add-on to PowerPoint, and that gives you like the visuals, right, that you want to present for me to remember. I think a lot of the things that I like to do, at least for like my key milestones, I have like a high level overview of what I'm trying to achieve with the date, right, that that needs to be done, and I do have it in my calendar, if there's a specific date, like a US launch or US launch or specific dates that we have to achieve that there are high, high-level milestones that you know if we don't make it, it's going to be a delay to the to the project. I make sure that those are in my calendar for sure. And then, in addition to that, in every single meeting that I have, like a project meeting that I have, the first thing that you're seeing in there is, you know, your key key milestones that you're trying to achieve, and for us to do that, that's the first thing that I usually refer to, right. So this is where we are, and this is what we're trying to achieve, so everyone understands every time we have a meeting that we have milestones to hit, right. I think that that that always sets the tone right on what we're trying to deliver as a team.
Aaron Moncur:Microsoft Timelines Pro, that's a new one. I haven't heard about that. I'm gonna have to check that out.
Yesenia Avellaneda:Yeah, no, 100% Office timeline pro from PowerPoint, it's like a PowerPoint add-on. It's really nice. I, I truly like it, because it gives you like a very nice visual overview, and it's easy, easy to put, you know, like timelines together and things like that. Leadership likes it, they do enjoy having, you know, more of like a nice visual, a very clean visual, right? Because sometimes if you go into like smart sheets or or Excel project, so is it called.. I think it's Excel Pro.. I don't know what's called.. I don't use it, but like it's a lot more worthy than than Bishum or appealing, you know,
Aaron Moncur:yeah, yeah. yeah, clean visuals are so helpful in presentation. Definitely,
Yesenia Avellaneda:100%
Aaron Moncur:All right, I'm going to switch gears a little bit here and talk about manufacturing operations, and you've been involved with this deeply. You've helped bring up new manufacturing operations from concept through full production. Can you talk a little bit about your experience in that area? And then one thing I'd love to hear is, what are some of the biggest challenges that come with scaling up new manufacturing like this, and how have you and your team been able to overcome some of those challenges?
Yesenia Avellaneda:Yeah, no, that's a really good question. So, before ADC, you know, before being a project engineer, I worked a lot with, as a manufacturing engineer, and also as a technical production supervisor for Abbott, but a different business unit, which is CRM, that's cardiac rate of management mainly working with pacemakers, which is more, you know, in the heart, and also working with caters, which is like the delivery system for the pacemakers, right. So, so working with, with that, I think when I joined, that was 2022 and at that specific time we were, it was just like in development, one of them, and one of them was launched, so the one in development, I think we were doing maybe at the beginning of development like 20 units a month, right, once we launched and got FDA approved, we started making, I think, 30 to 40 units a month, because, like, these devices, they're very long, like the caters, and it takes up to three days to make one. It goes to so many processes, right? It's not, it's not like a high, I guess it's, it's more of like a lengthy process, and smaller builds, but anyway, so we scaled up from doing maybe the goal a month was like 800 units to being able to do 5000 units a month, right, and to scale that up, that took up to a year and a half, so it doesn't come, it's not something that you go from, like, you know, I mean, from day one to like six months, I think it depends, right? A lot of things have to change when you're scaling up. You are doing hiring, you know, adding more operators and technicians. You're also increasing the capacity, right, increasing the equipment, increasing the volumes, increasing the demands, and there are so many changes that goes in that goes into all of that. I think the biggest risk, so issues when scaling up is that sometimes you, you can think I have to go fast, but I think it's, I think it's, it's, it's a balance, right, of being able to, of course, to, you wanna, you wanna meet the demands, but also you wanna make sure you do it well, and to do it well. I think you have to have a structured plan, and you have to understand very well, you know, like capacity, like capacity, not just for the manufacturing life, but also capacity for headcount, right? Once you understand what your capacity is and what you're able to attain, you can, you know, do a line balance, you can do a kite stand, you can do a lot of opex initiatives to be able to come up with a plan, right. And then that's how you kind of do phase approach. We went through a phase one, phase two, phase three, phase four to be able to be able to scale up. It was not an easy thing to do, but I think there is always a lot of things that you learned throughout the way, right. We learned that, you know, that we, I guess, we thought we thought initially we had assumptions, right, that we thought it was going to work this specific way, but along the, along the way, we learned that those assumptions were wrong, so we had to have a plan B, to, you know, to, to be able to continue, you know, meeting those deadlines that we had in terms of demands and production,
Aaron Moncur:if your company helps engineers design, build, or manufacture better products. We should talk at PDX, the product development expo. Companies don't just exhibit, they teach practical training right at their booth. Engineers walk away with new skills, and companies build real relationships with the people who use their tools and services. The result is high-quality connections built through real technical value, PDX 2026 is october 20 and 21st in Phoenix, and booth selection is first come, first served. Many are already reserved. To learn more about exhibiting, email us at PDX at Team pipeline.us Do you think of a time when, when something didn't go according to plan? Maybe it was as you were scaling up manufacturing, maybe it was a different project altogether, but in as much detail as you're able to share. Was there a time in your career where it just didn't go according to plan, and then, like, how did you and your team react to and overcome that problem?
Yesenia Avellaneda:Yeah, no, that, that is, I'm thinking, right, there is so many times the things to know about the plan, right, even with smaller projects. I remember this is this is another project that I led in CRM. It was setting up a new receiving inspection line, that's where we inspect the components, right, are coming from different vendors, and we had to set up a line, like a whole receiving like lab from scratch, and some of the validation work that we were doing, the software validation work was not, you know, was not going to plan, we were failing validation a couple times, so we, we also, you know, we brought engineers from, from, you know, from Silmart, California, because at this time I was in Minneapolis, and, and, yeah, I think it was like failure after failure, you know, and and I sometimes the moral of your team, you know, could go down, and sometimes when you're not, you're not being able to achieve, right, it does play this, like I said, this, this, this, this morale of this, this feeling of like, what can we do? How do we approach this? I think one thing that we did, it was taking a break from it, being able to like not work on this, because I think we were working hours and hours, and it was not going the way. I think the approach was like, how can we just get together and not think about this, maybe go out, you know, and eat something, or whatever, or go on a walk, and things like that. And then we came back and started doing, like, more of a listening session, you know, from everyone. I think understanding the inputs from every single team member and being able to, like, troubleshoot to different, you know, two different methods, right? I think at that time we did a fishbowl and a five why to be able to understand what was going on, and also leveraging, you know, other other team members that might not have been there to understand their input, right? And that's how we were able to overcome, but sometimes I think we don't when we're trying to solve things, you are under pressure, and you're trying to do those things that you don't think about, you know, how can you don't see the whole picture, if that makes sense. I think when you're more calm and not in a stress environment, and when you, when you are thinking, you know, just more out loud without having the stressor, you're able to be, to you know, to get the answers that you need,
Aaron Moncur:and it's not terribly uncommon, right, that when you're going from prototype builds to production builds, there are problems, you know, you fail validation, whatever it is, a lot of people, especially who aren't engineers or aren't very familiar with manufacturing, they just assume, well, you design a product and then you make it, and it's that simple, right? But there there's a big handoff that occurs between product development engineers and the manufacturing team. Have there been any tools that you found particularly helpful to make that transition as smooth as possible.
Yesenia Avellaneda:I'm thinking for failure analysis in a specific, you mean, or more of managing this
Aaron Moncur:could be either one. I'll leave it up to you, but the engineering team, who develops, who designs a product, right, they're not necessarily manufacturing people, and so they might not be thinking about all the little tweaks that need to occur, and what the manufacturing team is. To have to do to actually produce that design in a production environment, and so, like, how have your teams been able to make that handoff between engineering and manufacturing? Have there been, like, is there a particular process or protocol that you follow? Is there a tool that you use? Does it just come down to lots of conversations between the two teams?
Yesenia Avellaneda:Yeah, I mean, everything is in the design transfer, you know, report, right? You have the protocol, you have the report, and you have your design transfer plan, right? Everything that we're, that I guess the R and D team or the design team is, you know, working on has to be identified in your DTP, the and also your DND, which is your design transfer plan, your design deliverables, right? And once you have all of that, you know, implemented in there, that's how you transfer to production right once you have your, your plan, do your report, and then you can do your, you know, so you have your plan, the plan states what you're gonna do, and then you do your validation runs, right, everything, your PQs, OQs, TMBs, so once you do that, you have to close your report, and once you close your report, that means that you're ready to be able to get the approval from FDA, right, and everything is documented. I think that best, I mean, it's been working with with the team is making sure we document everything and making sure we document what we're trying to do right, and that's that's just a process that we follow. In addition to that, I mean, there is a lot of meetings, like with R and D and the design team on different mitigations, and also understanding the risks that we have to be able to, yeah, to be able to get to control all of those. So overall, I would say tools specific, I think it's a lot of, like, I mean, we use OneNote a lot. I don't know if this to document all the meeting notes and all of the deliverables too, besides like the other tools I mentioned before, but in terms of process, yeah, it's more, more of like your, yeah, your design transfer process, that's.. I don't know if that answers your question.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, it does. It does. If you're able to.. are there any specific items? I'm sure there are loads of them, right? Dozens or hundreds, but are there.. what are a couple examples of specific items that are in that design transfer plan, just for those who maybe aren't as familiar with this area.
Yesenia Avellaneda:Yeah, I mean, your design transfer plan, I mean it's it's just deliverables that you have to attain, right? You have roles and responsibilities, you have your equipment, the list of equipment, you list all your procedures, you list all your sub assemblies, you're gonna list everything that you're gonna do right for the specific component. Let's say you have a device that is square shape or whatever, whatever device that you have, you have to make sure you put in there, you know, like the components, the equipment, whatever you're going to use to be able to do the validation, right. And then in that plan, you have to state, you know, all of the validation activities that are going to happen, right, your TMBs, your PQs, your OQs, and everything. And then you also have, like, an assessment from regulatory, an assessment from quality, you know, it's, it's a lot of like everything that you worked goes in there, if that makes sense. So, I think those are a few things that I'm able to share.
Aaron Moncur:That's perfect. Yeah, thank you for sharing those details. You know, I see it from the other side, right. My company, we make custom manufacturing equipment that teams like yours use, fixtures and automation machines, and things like that, and we don't fully appreciate the entirety of this design transfer plan, right, that like your teams are looking at, but from our side, we just see, all right, here's the new machine. Here's the robot. Here's the fixture that you're going to use. So, it's, it's, it's interesting to hear someone from your perspective talk, talk about the entirety of this, this enormous plan, and all the detail, the work that goes into that. Yesenia, thank you so much for being with us today. This is super fun. Thank you for sharing all these wonderful pieces of knowledge about manufacturing and design transfer. Thank you, Yesenia. I really appreciate it. I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of Pipeline Design and Engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please share the episode to learn how your team can leverage our. Team's expertise developing advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines, and custom fixtures, complemented with product design and R&D services. Visit us at Team pipeline.us to join a vibrant community of engineers online. Visit the Wave dot engineer. Thank you for listening. Being an engineer has more than 300 episodes, and you don't have to listen to them in order. If you're dealing with a specific challenge right now, there's a good chance we've already interviewed an engineer who's been through it. You can jump around, search by topic, and listen to what's most relevant to you. See you on the next episode.
