Not every professional conference attendance turns into a successful job offer, but for Mackenzie Tobertga, a fourth-year bioengineering major at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, her interest in interviewing with a global health care firm at the 2025 WE conference in New Orleans resulted in just that. She accepted an offer to join Abbott as a clinical research scientist upon graduation.
Tobertga recently completed her systems engineer cooperative education (co-op) experience with Abbott Heart Failure and returned to university for her final semester. She shares more on her SWE membership journey, conference highlights, engineering interests, and encouragement from her collegiate experiences.
SWE Connections
“I’d applied to interview with Abbott for a full-time clinical research position before the WE conference in NOLA and was offered an interview on my first day there,” says Tobertga, who was actively working as a co-op systems engineer for Abbott at the time. The conference in New Orleans was her second annual conference experience, with her first being in Los Angeles in 2023.
“I knew since my first WE conference that Abbott was a company I’d like to work for one day. I admired how every employee and product was patient focused,” she says. “When I got my co-op at Abbott, I was excited and grateful. I still am today. Returning to Abbott wasn’t an expected outcome, but something I was interested in, hence why I wanted to apply full-time.”
Tobertga learned about SWE before she joined college and learned more about the organization on campus. She has always been drawn to organizations that focus on professional development and networking, particularly within engineering. Attracted by the supportive group of women also pursuing careers in STEM, SWE membership soon followed.
“As a SWE member at my university, I was fortunate to be chosen to attend the conference in NOLA. The chapter helped support not just me, but also four other girls to attend the conference,” Tobertga shares. “My favorite part about the conference was the environment and workshops available to learn new skills and perspectives.” It was at one of these workshops in 2023 that she first learned about Abbott and career paths available with a bioengineering degree.
“I’ve found WE conferences helpful, especially for learning more about a particular career path, company, or how to better yourself as a professional woman in STEM. I also find the networking aspect of SWE super helpful, especially as graduation looms,” she says. “I’ve met many wonderful women at other universities also in SWE who I’m still connected to on platforms such as LinkedIn. Seeing their success always makes me so happy and motivated.”
Childhood Interests
Tobertga says her interest in STEM began when she was in Girl Scouts and attended an event where women engineers from multiple disciplines described what they did and demonstrated it with interactive activities. She has been fascinated with engineering as a profession ever since.
“I started Girl Scouts in kindergarten and ended as a senior in high school. That event happened when I was in my third or fourth year as a Girl Scout,” she shares. Activities she remembers vividly were related to civil engineering — one involved building bridges from Dots candy and toothpicks and another making water filters to learn about water quality.
“What stuck with me the most was the way activities such as these were used to model real-world problems that these women were solving. The concept of problem-solving these big issues as a profession was cool,” she says. “Since then, I’ve always gravitated toward organizations or activities that focus on solving and understanding problems. That’s one of the reasons why I started to love science and math.”
In high school, Tobertga joined her school’s FIRST Robotics team, EagleForce 2073, where the focus was on designing a robot to solve multiple challenges every year. She took engineering classes such as CAD (AutoCad, Inventor), engineering design, and mechatronics in high school to gain hands-on experience, which helped provide a foundation to pursue engineering in college. That theme of problem-solving is consistent with the efforts of organizations she’s joined in college such as SWE, National Society of Black Engineers, professional collegiate engineering fraternity Theta Tau, and the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement program.
“I’ve had some memorable educators in my life, in elementary, middle, and high school who would challenge me to think about things differently or teach me new ways to learn, especially my fourth-grade teacher, my AP biology teacher, and my AP calculus teacher,” she says about her role models. “I have a lot of family that have been supportive. My parents the most — they would always support me for robotics competitions, sometimes joining me if it was out-of-state or even volunteering at events. It’s something special that we share now.”
Engineering Plans
For anyone contemplating a career in STEM, she encourages them to keep pushing forward and finding a good support system. “It can be hard to pursue a career in STEM, so surrounding yourself with others equally as grounded can be benefiting, especially if they are able to challenge you.”
She admits that imposter syndrome has crept in along her journey. “When I began my major, I felt out of place at times and even questioned if bioengineering was the right thing for me. However, what kept me grounded was the fellow women in STEM and bioengineering, whether they were students or faculty. I always felt so motivated by them and seeing all the wonderful things that could be accomplished.”
Tobertga is excited about the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of patients worldwide through cardiovascular medical devices. She looks forward to learning more about the clinical side of medical devices and bioengineering.
“I’m interested in medicine as a field that everyone interacts with at some point of their life. The cool part about medtech is that these devices help save and prolong the lives of so many people every day, and I find that fascinating and such a special process to be a part of,” she says.
“One of the things I’ve loved about bioengineering is that piece of being able to solve technical problems related to health care. The clinical side is really fascinating because it’s an area where people meet a product/process. I’m interested in that clinical research, clinical engineering, systems engineering, or really any research and/or development type of role. If I’m able to be a little part of helping to solve a problem that can positively impact someone’s life, I’m all in.”
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