Rice undergraduate admission · Sample interviewer (fictional)
Fictional interviewer written for this sample; the employers are invented.
Lorena Villasenor (she/her)
Senior Product Manager at Mesa Vista Health Devices · Rice Alumni Volunteer for Admission (RAVA) · El Paso, Texas
About
I help build portable diagnostic devices for clinics that don't have a full lab, and I spend most of my week translating between engineers, nurses and regulators. I grew up in Las Cruces, went to Rice not knowing anyone, and found my people at Lovett College. Since 2016 I've interviewed applicants from West Texas and southern New Mexico for Rice, and I enjoy hearing what students build when nobody assigns it. I care about first-generation students, good coffee and well-designed instructions.
Experience
Mesa Vista Health Devices (El Paso, TX) - Senior Product Manager, 2020 - present - Lead a team of 9 bringing a handheld blood-chemistry reader to rural clinics; launched in 2023 across 40 sites in Texas and New Mexico. - Run field visits and user-testing with clinic staff in English and Spanish.
Mesa Vista Health Devices - Product Engineer, 2016 - 2020 - Redesigned a cartridge housing that cut manufacturing defects by about a third.
Gulfline Process Systems (Houston, TX) - Process Engineer, 2011 - 2016 - Worked on water-treatment skids for industrial plants; on-call during the 2015 Memorial Day floods.
Rice Alumni Volunteers for Admission (RAVA) - Volunteer interviewer and regional coordinator, El Paso and southern New Mexico, 2016 - present - Interview 10-15 applicants a year; host an admitted-student send-off each summer.
Education
- Rice University - B.S., Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, 2011 (Lovett College). Played viola in a student chamber group; Lovett college associate events volunteer.
- University of Texas at El Paso - M.S., Engineering Management, 2018 (part-time).
Volunteering
- Mentor, a first-generation college-prep program at a Las Cruces high school (2017 - present).
- Judge, regional high-school science fair, engineering category (2019 - present).
Languages
English (native), Spanish (native).
Interests
Hiking the Organ Mountains, desert gardening, chamber music, Rice Owls baseball, and testing every green chile cheeseburger between El Paso and Albuquerque.