Not All Engineers Work in Labs
NTU Engineering’s new graduates are stepping into exciting roles at leading companies, both locally and abroad. Today, we spotlight Daksana, who proves an engineering degree and the analytical rigour it brings can be a passport to paths beyond pure engineering. For Daksana, that path has led to Johnson & Johnson, one of the world’s most valuable healthcare companies.
When Daksana graduated in July 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a Second Major in Business, she was certain she wanted to enter the pharmaceutical industry, ideally in a role that blended scientific work with business and people engagement.
To get there, she reached out to a contact at one of the world’s largest and most respected healthcare companies, Johnson & Johnson (J&J).
“The starting point was actually NTU’s CareerAxis website during my second year at NTU,” explained Daksana. “My engagement with the career portal while looking at internships connected me to a member of the J&J human resources team.”
Although she didn’t intern with J&J at the time, she stayed in touch with the HR professional, who later kept an eye out for permanent post-graduation roles that matched her interests and skills.
Daksana graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a Second Major in Business
Soon, she found she’d swapped beakers and lab coats for slide decks, regulatory reviews and the organised chaos of planning regional medical events.
“I never set out to do medical affairs, but it really makes sense,” admitted the School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (CCEB) grad, who now serves as Medical Education and Compliance Associate in the company’s pharmaceutical arm, Innovative Medicine.
At her job, Daksana shapes and delivers medical education programmes for healthcare professionals across Southeast Asia. Her day typically involves working with medical advisers to plan scientific content, coordinating with scientific societies and agency partners, reviewing educational materials for accuracy and compliance, and managing the logistics, budgeting, and documentation required for major congresses and regional events.
It’s a role that moves constantly between science, planning, stakeholder management, and financial oversight. It’s exactly the blend she hoped for.
Her engineering training, she said, is woven into almost everything she does. The discipline of breaking complex problems into parts, evaluating scientific claims, and making decisions with incomplete information mirrors the rigour she learned at NTU College of Engineering.
But it was the business element of her degree that rounded out the skill set medical affairs demands. Stakeholder management, budgeting, cross-functional communication, and understanding how scientific work connects to organisational strategy all trace back to her cross-discipline coursework.
“Engineering gave me the analytical backbone while business gave me the language to work with people, teams, and markets,” explained Daksana.
For Daksana, an engineering foundation proved remarkably portable. Her majors didn’t simply add together, they amplified each other.
Daksana joined Johnson & Johnson after graduating from NTU in 2024
Daksana’s success in merging two disciplines reflects a bigger trend at NTU. The university placed fifth globally in the 2026 Times Higher Education Interdisciplinary Science Rankings, making it Asia’s highest-ranked institution in the category.
While the ranking measures how well universities fund, support and produce cross-disciplinary research, the emphasis at NTU reaches across all levels. Even at the undergraduate level, students enrol in compulsory Interdisciplinary Collaborative Core modules to immerse them early in cross-discipline learning.
For Daksana, the payoff of her double major and current role is knowing she’s ultimately helping clinicians make better-informed decisions that improve patient outcomes. But on a personal level, she enjoys the travel and camaraderie among colleagues that accompanies her role.
“Each country has its own healthcare landscape and cultural context,” said Daksana. “Being able to experience those differences firsthand has broadened my perspective.”
The other perk? Wherever she travels in the region, there’s now a colleague-turned-friend waiting to welcome her.
Story by Laura Dobberstein, NTU College of Engineering