Chinwe Cynthia Obi ’23

For Chinwe Cynthia Obi '23, choosing the University of Minnesota Rochester was a strategic decision and came down to its location in Rochester, Minnesota — home to Mayo Clinic.

"I knew that being close to that kind of institution would give me access to opportunities I couldn’t get anywhere else: hands-on clinical exposure, real research experience and connections with people actually working in the field I wanted to build a career in," Obi said. "That proximity ended up shaping almost everything about my time here… Looking back, choosing University of Minnesota Rochester wasn’t just about the degree; it was about positioning myself early for the career I have now in health tech."

While on campus, Obi was involved in research, clinical shadowing and programs like Pre-Med Insight and SURF at Mayo Clinic. She credits these experiences with giving her a head start on understanding how health care and research actually operated in practice before she ever had a job title.

Her Capstone experience also opened the door to hands-on learning across multiple environments. Through UMN Rochester’s directed research program, she investigated soil microbial species. She partnered with The Village Community Gardens, an agricultural cooperative, to study microbial antibiotic resistance contamination in local soil using techniques like PCR, gel electrophoresis and bacterial isolation. She also conducted behavioral neuroscience research using zebrafish in Dr. Chris Pierret’s lab at Mayo Clinic.

Additionally, she worked as an undergraduate academic assistant in microbiology with Dr. Rachel Olson with whom she shared had the biggest impact on her time on campus. 

"She immersed me in the world of research and helped connect me with the right people and opportunities that shaped my career path," shared Obi. 

Today, Obi works as a digital health informatics consultant at Abbott Diagnostics, leading the enterprise deployment and adoption of digital health platforms across hospital and laboratory environments nationwide while architecting complex laboratory informatics ecosystems.