HOST JACKIE TANTILLO - Reach For The Stars, They're Closer Than You Think With Guest CEO and Founder Of SimpliFed Andrea Ippolito

<p>I feel that I got an up close and personal invitation into the life of a female pioneer who because of her own accomplishments, worked alongside other fearless women who broke through barriers. So when your mother sets the bar super high, what do you do?  One follows suit apparently.</p><p>And that's exactly what Andrea Ippolito has done. As I mention in my introduction, she has a very impressive background. Both mother and daughter are engineers and their lives/personalities are very much intertwined or "tangled" as Andrea says.</p><p>In this episode you'll hear stories of Mary working with female astronauts redesigning the first female space suit so it's anatomically correct for a woman. That's something significant that never crossed my mind until I heard these stories.</p><p>Andrea says that her mom is still an inspiration to her. "Mom raised us to stick up for ourselves" recalls Ippolito. Andrea says her mother was always there for her, she encouraged her to experience different things and situations. Mary says, "she taught me that we need more women innovators at the table designing the next generation of women's health products with their own lived experience whenever possible."</p><p><i><strong>About Andrea:</strong></i><a href="https://simplifed.us/who-we-are/" target="_blank"><i><strong>Andrea Ippolito</strong></i></a><i> currently serves as the CEO and Founder of </i><a href="https://simplifed.us/" target="_blank"><i><strong>SimpliFed</strong></i></a><i>. Prior to joining Cornell, Andrea served as the Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Innovators Network within the VA Center for Innovation and served as a Presidential Innovation Fellow based out of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and General Services Administration. She was the Co-Founder of an innovative application that improves access to care called Smart Scheduling (acquired by athenahealth in 2016). She also previously served as the Co-Director of MIT Hacking Medicine, as an Innovation Specialist at the