Elizabeth (Belling) Krigbaum (B.S. ’22, industrial engineering) knew she wanted to transfer to study industrial engineering (IE) at Iowa State after attending Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC).
“The transfer to Iowa State was a smooth transition thanks to IMSE’s great academic advisors,” says Krigbaum. She credits IMSE academic advisor Devna Popejoy-Sherriff for making the process seamless.
Krigbaum’s journey to IE started in high school, where she took Project Lead the Way (PLTW) courses. This resulted in an invitation to visit Iowa State, where she heard from Iowa State students about the different engineering majors offered at ISU.
“When the industrial engineering major was presented, a light bulb went off in my head. It was and has been the perfect fit for my interests and skills,” says Krigbaum, “My time at ISU was hands down my favorite years of school.”
What made IE so special? Community, career fair, student clubs, and capstone.
Krigbaum appreciated opportunities to get to know her professors personally and the mentoring she received from them while at Iowa State and beyond graduation.
Also high on her list was the engineering career fair and student organizations at Iowa State providing a great way to network and practice talking to potential employers. The emphasis on building connections and providing opportunities for students to meet people working as engineers, Krigbaum discovered in talking with others, is unique to Iowa State.
“In fact,” she says, “I landed an interview for my first job in an engineering project management role at Honeywell FM&T in Kansas City while attending a Society of Women in Engineers (SWE) national conference as a student.”
During Krigbaum’s junior year at Iowa State, she worked with Mary Greeley Medical Center (MGMC) for her IE 3610: Statistical Quality Assurance project taught by IMSE professor Michael Dorneich. Then, as a senior, her team asked IMSE teaching professor David Sly if they could work with MGMC again for their senior capstone (IE 4410) project and he agreed.
Krigbaum’s team’s project was calculating and increasing capacity in MGMC’s Ambulatory Surgery Center through process improvement techniques. The results of their project saved MGMC about $3 million/year.
“The most important way the IE program at Iowa State helped prepare me was through senior capstone,” says Krigbaum, “These two class projects are what encouraged me to pursue healthcare quality/process improvement and showed me opportunities outside of manufacturing.”
Krigbaum wanted to be involved in process improvement, particularly in the healthcare industry. So, in June 2023, Krigbaum was hired as a Quality Improvement Engineer in the Quality Improvement Program (QuIP) at the University of Iowa Health Care.
“I still apply lessons I learned during that senior capstone project to my work now,” says Krigbaum,” For my current role at the University of Iowa Healthcare, I had to present a past improvement project I completed. I presented my capstone project, and it landed me my dream job! I get to apply philosophy and tools of process improvement in a hospital setting.”
Krigbaum works on various quality and process improvement projects, ranging from reducing hospital-associated infections to improving operational processes in their operating rooms and beyond. This role is a mix of building relationships with teams across the hospital (surgeons, epidemiology, respiratory therapy, and nursing departments – to name a few), analyzing data sets, and teaching courses on quality/process improvement.
“I meet some amazing people and love improving their everyday lives. It’s also meaningful to me to know I’m helping staff provide great quality care to patients, which makes a difference in patients’ lives,” she says.
Meeting with teams, hearing their frustrations, working through those challenges and bringing solutions to life is something she loves.
“For me, IE is about making people’s lives better,” says Krigbaum.