Kristin Myers Peng: 2025 Distinguished Achievement Award recipient

BSBME ’02 (MBA ’07, Harvard University)
Healthcare leader, advisor and board member

A biomedical engineer, executive and entrepreneur who is transforming healthcare outcomes through technology and innovation.

Kristin Myers grew up as one of four kids of a single mother who worked overnight shifts in the psychiatric ward of the Veteran Affairs hospital in Milwaukee.

“From an early age, I saw the importance of healthcare,” she says. “If you don’t have your health, it’s hard to be able to enjoy and appreciate anything else.”

Myers has spent her career trying to fix the healthcare system across different sectors of the industry and different sized companies, from CVS Health and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield System all the way down to a startup with a single employee.

“The U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world and we have some of the worst outcomes,” she says.

Most recently, Myers served as COO of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, leading operations, technology and innovation programs like generative AI and advanced analytics. The Blue Cross Blue Shield System, 33 federated companies, provides health insurance to one in three Americans, more than 115 million people. Previously, she founded and served as CEO of Hopscotch Primary Care, a clinic-based primary care provider to Medicare and Medicaid patients in rural communities.

Myers, whose husband is an anesthesiologist, started her career in medical device sales at Medtronic and worked in the venture capital space before moving into executive roles at Aetna, CVS Health and Unified Women’s Healthcare.

“The opportunity to take my skill set and my passion for healthcare, and be able to address so many different issues, so many different challenges, in so many different places and settings, over time, I feel truly grateful for that opportunity,” she says.

How did your engineering education enable your success?

Almost every day, I would say, I feel like I use tools from the toolbox that I built as an engineer. Everything from structured and critical thinking, analytical skills, the data-driven nature of approaching challenges and problems, and thinking about how I make sure we’re prioritizing the things we need to do. How do I understand the data underpinning the problems that we’re trying to solve or the opportunities we see to make sure we develop the right solution? And then how do I make sure we develop robust execution plans and have process and measurement in place to stay on track? I’m a really structured thinker. I think in frameworks, develop strategies that will deliver measurable outcomes and then make a plan to accomplish it all. I think that’s true of the best-run companies, organizations and programs I’ve seen in my career. Those things are so fundamental to what you learn as an engineering student.

Which engineering professor or class made the greatest impact on you?

Believe it or not, it was probably one of the more introductory and foundational courses, BME 201: Biomedical Engineering Design and Fundamentals. It was about finding a real-world problem or opportunity—and then breaking things down, developing a solution and making it happen. And Professor (Emeritus) Willis Tompkins forever!

Which do you prefer?

Camp Randall, the Kohl Center, or the UW Field House?
Camp Randall.

Fun on the Terrace or fun on Lake Mendota?
Lake Mendota. Sailing, but in someone else’s boat.

Sweet Caroline or Jump Around?
Sweet Caroline (or can I mash them together?).

Engineering Mall or Library Mall?
Engineering Mall.

Favorite Babcock ice cream flavor?
Mint chip. I hope it’s still there. Cookie dough can be our backup. Or Oreo. You can tell I like ice cream. It’s hard for me to choose.