Biomedical engineering alumnus values partnership of Medtronic and the Visible Heart Labs

The partnership helps to visualize better heart devices

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (07/16/2025) — The Visible Heart Laboratories, located on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, are part of a unique partnership between academia and industry that is enhancing the future of cardiac technologies. 

Back in 1997, then-Medtronic executive Dale Wahlstrom realized that cardiac engineers were missing a crucial piece of their training. With the help of his colleagues Mark Hjelle and Tim Laske, he approached Paul Iaizzo, a University of Minnesota professor focused on system physiological research and human anatomical studies, to help find solutions.

Iaizzo went on to develop the Visible Heart Labs (part of the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Engineering in Medicine), which are now well-positioned to provide essential, hands-on education covering the physiology and anatomy of the human heart. 

Alex Hill, a biomedical engineering alumnus who is now senior engineering director at Medtronic, took Iaizzo’s Advanced Cardiac Physiology and Anatomy course when he was a student and spent countless hours conducting research on human heart specimens. After Hill graduated, Iaizzo asked Hill to help teach the course, which he’s been doing for more than 20 years.

“We design medical devices, so understanding the physiology and understanding the anatomy [of the heart] are critical things that a lot of engineering students don’t necessarily have as much exposure to,” Hill said.“It’s a pretty critical aspect of designing something that’s going to be safe and used by physicians to treat hundreds of thousands of patients.”

As a longtime supporter of the Visible Heart Labs, Hill says Medtronic has benefited greatly from this ongoing collaboration.

“We’ve been able to co-build and learn together,” Hill said. “The partnership gives us the ability to collaborate…to really be inventive and create things and develop good solutions.”

Iaizzo also appreciates the decades-long partnership with Medtronic and the professional flexibility it affords him. He holds the Medtronic Professorship in the Institute for Engineering in Medicine, a position that provides him with funding to pursue innovative educational projects. One such project was creating a mobile app that helps medical students visualize and understand echocardiography.   

Read the full story on the University of Minnesota Foundation website.