Atara’s Continued Investment in KGI’s Team Master’s Project

Keck Graduate Institute’s (KGI) Team Master’s Project (TMP) is a widely recognized means of bridging a partnership between the life sciences industry and bright, innovative, and proactive students.

The TMP is a nine-month program that provides an applied educational experience for KGI’s emerging leaders while enabling productivity and project results for organizations like Atara. Benefits of the TMP include a chance to address a specific opportunity or solve a problem that would otherwise have lower priority, and gain an integrated perspective that more comprehensively analyzes a situation and provides a recommended business action plan.

Atara, a leading allogeneic T-cell immunotherapy company, has sponsored a TMP for the past two years. Albert Cosme, Atara’s Associate Director Engineering & Facilities and this year’s TMP Corporate Liaison, worked with KGI students to develop and pressure test a systematic way of allocating priority to critical spare parts used sitewide for equipment and instruments.

“This year’s TMP addressed an important initiative in maintaining our operating capabilities at Atara,” said Daniel Lee, MBS ‘12, Atara’s Sr. Director Operations. “The ability to proactively prioritize, replace, and manage critical parts to maintain operations at our sites is key to our success at Atara.”

“The KGI TMP effectively assessed critical attributes and successfully bridged quantitative and qualitative parameters as part of their deliverables.”

The importance of this developed system was showcased during the TMP on-site final presentation and was very well received in its innovation and positive impact on the business.

Of the KGI students who worked on the TMP, two joined Atara this summer as Summer Tech Ops Exploration Program (STEP) Interns: Chase Pasos, MEng ’22, and Lea O’Brien, MEng ’22, who displayed their passions to work in industry. They were joined by an additional STEP Intern, KGI student Kevin Maxkwee, MBS ‘22.

For more information on KGI’s TMP, visit kgi.edu/tmp.