Elise Huisman
Elise has a passion for creating better access to healthcare and this has led her to her current role as Sr. Principle Scientist at Medtronic. Her education is in Biomedical Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, after which she moved to Vancouver, to be closer to the mountains and did her PhD at UBC in Rehabilitation Sciences.
Then she co-founded Arbutus Medical, a medical device company specializing in affordable orthopedic power tools, she specialized in business development, sales and product management. After working in a hardware product focused environment, she felt it was time to branch out to digital health, and worked in 2 start-ups HealthQb and XCO. HealthQb is focused on treating chronic pain more effectively, while XCO’s goal is creating a patch that measures vitals wirelessly. While wearing multiple hats in a start-up environment, she primarily focused on business development and product management.As Medtronic had been a company that was a great example during her time at Arbutus Medical, Elise jumped on the opportunity to join them in 2022. As she tremendously valued mentorship when she was in a start-up, Elise provides mentorship to start-ups currently.