Andrea McGonigle

Managing Director for the Life Sciences, Microsoft

“There’s an app for that.” It’s Andrea McGonigle’s career motto. Her job is to evaluate the life-sciences industry and devise apps for Microsoft’s technology products. Put another way, she looks at what medical patients need and uses Microsoft’s products to meet those needs. 

Case in point: McGonigle paired Skype and Lync with NICU departments at various hospitals. “If a baby needs to go to the NICU, the mother doesn’t have the opportunity to have the baby in her room, let alone hold the baby for extended periods,” she says. “That creates a lot of anxiety for moms. So we put monitors inside NICUs. From their hospital beds, moms can call via Skype to see how their babies are doing.”

McGonigle also goes by the crazy-cool label of Microsoft Thought Leader. Such thoughts have led to many pairings of technology and medicine. Xbox is used to give physical therapists accurate real-time data on their patients’ mobility.
Diabetics who wear a glucose-monitoring system can upload the data to a cloud-based Microsoft application, from which patients and physicians can download to their phones and computers. 

- Advertisement -

McGonigle’s team is based in Malvern, and she lives in Havertown, so the Main Line area is her home. That’s why she got involved with the Eastern Pennsylvania chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, where she’s now on the executive board. “They have excellent patient-care programs, raise a ton of money, and pour the money right back into this area,” she says. “It’s amazing to see how people are helped through its work.”

Our Best of the Main Line Elimination Ballot is open through February 22!