August 2026
Q&A with Summer 2026 Mechanical Engineering Intern, Paola Romero
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Paola Romero, a Mechanical Engineering student at MIT, spent summer 2026 at Lexington Medical, Inc., designing and testing real hardware, taking ownership of a printed circuit board from start to finish, and contributing to R&D work in surgical stapling and robotics. Along the way, she learned alongside experienced engineers and even visited an operating room to see a surgical device in use.
Paola first connected with Lexington Medical at an MIT career fair. As her internship came to a close, we sat down with her to talk about what she worked on, what surprised her, what she learned, and how the experience shaped what she wants to do after MIT.
Q: Tell us a little about yourself and what you’re studying at MIT.
A: I’m studying Mechanical Engineering at MIT. I’ve been involved in soft robotics research, and next spring I’ll be working on research related to greenhouse efficiency. Those projects are pretty different, but there’s a common theme. I like applying engineering toward things that positively impact people. That has really been my guiding light in deciding what I want to work on. This summer, that brought me to medical devices and Lexington Medical.
Q: What first sparked your interest in mechanical engineering and medical devices?
A: It actually goes back to elementary school. I always loved doing things with my hands, whether it was crafts, building something, or figuring out how things worked. Mechanical engineering felt like a way to keep making things while also constantly learning about how the world works, how things move, and why they move. When I started thinking about where I wanted to apply those engineering skills, I kept coming back to wanting my work to help people. Medical devices stood out because of the direct impact they can have, while still giving me so many opportunities to build, design, solve problems, and keep learning.
Q: How did you first discover Lexington Medical?
A: I first learned about Lexington Medical, Inc. at an MIT career fair in the fall. I was interested right away, but it was at a smaller MIT Mechanical Engineering career fair later in the semester where I really had the opportunity to have a meaningful conversation with the engineer and recruiter at the Lexington Medical table.
As I learned more about the company, I got the impression that it was very fast-paced and that I would constantly be learning. I also really liked what I saw of the people and the culture. That made me want to work specifically at Lexington.
Q: What advice would you give other MIT engineering students approaching career fairs?
A: Focus on the quality of your conversations over the quantity. Recruiters and engineers at career fairs meet so many people. I think it’s much more valuable to take the time to make a real connection with a company you’re genuinely interested in than to try to talk to everyone.
At that smaller Mechanical Engineering career fair, Lexington Medical was the only company I talked to. For me, having that meaningful conversation was much more valuable than trying to visit every table. Be yourself, ask questions, and don’t be afraid to really engage with the people you’re talking to.
Q: What were you hoping to learn when you started your internship?
A: The biggest thing I wanted was clarity about whether medical devices were actually what I wanted to pursue. I was really interested in medical devices before coming to Lexington Medical, but I had never actually worked in the industry. I got my answer. Yes, this is what I want to do.
Beyond that, I wanted to develop my technical engineering skills, but also professional skills like communication and presenting engineering work to other people.
Q: What kind of work did you take on as a Mechanical Engineering Intern?
A: I worked as part of the R&D engineering team, supporting different mechanisms being developed by other engineers. That included designing and creating test fixtures, testing mechanisms to help inform engineering decisions, and working on a printed circuit board that could potentially support future-generation product development.
I also had the opportunity to support R&D work related to surgical robotics. There were a number of smaller projects throughout the summer too, so I was constantly learning new technical skills and getting experience solving different kinds of engineering problems.
Q: What project are you most proud of?
A: Probably the printed circuit board I worked on because it was the first PCB that I took from start to finish myself. I had worked on PCBs before, but always alongside someone else. This time, the project was mine. I still had support from my coworkers and went through several design reviews, but I was responsible for driving it. There were definitely challenges along the way. At one point I discovered a mismatched footprint on the board, and there wasn’t enough time to simply order another PCB. I had to get creative and figure out how to work around it.
When the board finally arrived, it was incredibly satisfying. I had been looking at this design on a screen for so long, and suddenly I could physically hold it in my hands. Seeing the LEDs light up and confirm that parts of the design were working was a really great moment.
Q: What did you learn about engineering in a fast-moving R&D environment?
A: One of my biggest lessons was learning when to stop trying to make something perfect and start building. Coming from research and school, my instinct can be to investigate everything thoroughly before I fabricate something. Here, I learned how much you can gain by prototyping earlier, learning from what you build, and then iterating.
I also learned to let go of the idea that every project needs a clean start-to-finish arc. Working on an R&D team is more like picking up an oar on a boat: you make progress where you can, and when you leave, someone else picks up the oar and keeps rowing. In an 11-week internship, I often wouldn’t see a project through to completion, so I had to recognize when my time was better spent working on something that would help the team make progress now, rather than something that might only become useful on a later voyage.
Ultimately, I learned to balance intentionality with speed: knowing when to slow down so you can move faster later, and when something is good enough to build, learn from, and pass forward.
Q: What professional skills did you develop?
A: Communication and presentation skills were a big area of growth. I led three separate design reviews for my PCB project. That taught me how to explain an engineering project clearly, ask for useful feedback, and present information in a way that tells a story rather than just showing a collection of technical details. That experience helped me grow as an engineer because engineering isn’t only about finding a solution. You also have to be able to communicate your thinking to other people.
Q: What has it been like learning from Lexington Medical’s engineers?
A: One of my favorite things about Lexington is definitely the people. There are engineers who are just a few years ahead of me in their careers, which is really valuable because their advice feels very relevant to where I am right now. At the same time, there are senior engineers, principal engineers, and leaders with an incredible amount of experience.
There hasn’t been a time when I’ve had a question and couldn’t find someone who could help me think about it differently or help me figure out a solution. There’s a lot of knowledge here, but people are also willing to share it.
Q: What surprised you most about the internship?
A: It was even more fast-paced than I expected. I knew coming in that Lexington moved quickly, but experiencing that pace was different. I was constantly learning, switching between problems, and figuring out how to keep moving when something unexpected happened. I really enjoyed it because I felt like I was learning all the time. I felt like I learned more in a couple of months here than I might have in a much longer period in a larger organization.
Q: You also had the opportunity to observe a surgery. What was that experience like?
A: That was one of the most impactful experiences of my summer. Lexington Medical really values giving engineers exposure to what happens in a real operating room, and I was very appreciative that I had the opportunity to do that even as an intern. I traveled to Atlanta and observed a laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy. We changed into scrubs, entered the operating room, and watched the procedure as it happened. I remember seeing the AEON surgical stapler on the table with the other surgical devices and immediately recognizing it. Then the nurse picked it up and handed it to the surgeon, and I watched the surgeon actually use it. It was one thing to learn about a medical device in the lab. It was completely different to see it being used on a real patient.
I started noticing details I hadn’t thought about before, like how the surgeon approached the placement and alignment of staple lines. It made me realize how much there is for engineers to learn by observing how products are actually used. More than anything, it gave me a much deeper appreciation for the responsibility behind medical device engineering. Surgeons are putting an enormous amount of trust into the devices they use. When you’re designing something that will be used in surgery, the engineering really matters.
Q: How has your internship influenced what you want to do after MIT?
A: Before this internship, I thought medical devices might be what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure. Now I am. I love that medical device engineering gives me an opportunity to use my skills to make a positive difference in people’s lives while still working on really interesting engineering problems. I’m planning to apply to the Mechanical Engineering master’s program at MIT, and I’m also planning to take medical device courses at MIT before I graduate. Whether I go directly into industry or after graduate school, I see myself working in medical devices.
Q: What advice would you give a student considering a mechanical engineering internship at Lexington Medical?
A: Don’t be afraid to just try things. I can get stuck in the design phase because I want to make something as good as it can possibly be before I build it. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that you often learn more by making something and iterating.
And if you’re still a few years away from applying for internships, get as much experience as you can physically building things.
The theory you learn in class is incredibly important, but there are some things you only really understand once you’ve made something yourself. Build things. Make things. Try things. That’s how you learn.
Q: What was your favorite part of the Lexington Medical internship experience?
A: The people and the intern cohort. There were six interns in our group this summer, and we became really close. We’d get lunch together, and some Thursdays we’d go to Walden Pond after work. That sense of community wasn’t limited to the interns. One thing that stood out to me was that the people here aren’t just great engineers. They’re good people too. I had positive experiences with everyone I worked with, and that is one of the things that made Lexington special for me.
Q: And finally, what's something people might not know about you outside of engineering?
A: I biked to work a lot this summer and totaled almost 300 miles just commuting. And at MIT, I’m involved in fire spinning.
So I guess I like building things, biking, and occasionally playing with fire!
Paola Romero
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