The 2017 MedTech Boston 40 Under 40 Healthcare Innovators

24. Olga Elizarova, DDS, MPH
Senior Behavior Change Analyst at Mad*Pow
Olga Elizarova has always been curious about how people behave. She chose to attend dental school in her home country of Russia, as it allowed her to explore human biology alongside medical students for three years before finishing her schooling with a specialized interest in dental health and care. Yet in her required internship, she found that she preferred bigger scale healthcare work over one-on-one patient care.

After working as a project lead on a healthcare project designing for people with disabilities, she knew she needed to explore public health and “design” further. She left home to attend Brown University and pursue a Masters in Public Health degree.

Now, as the Senior Behavior Change Analyst at Mad*Pow, Olga says the most rewarding part of her job “is seeing the positive impact that design can make in the lives of people we are designing with.” Similar to the sense of joy and happiness she experienced while working as a dentist, Olga explains that in being able to design solutions for thousands or millions of people, “the rewarding feeling is growing logarithmically.”

Olga sees behavior change “interventions” all around us, in everything from laundry detergent branding to incentives to invest in 401k’s, and is drawn to understanding them. She says, “I find it exciting to learn more about how they work, how they change us, because through this we can learn more about ourselves and our differences.”

When not designing a healthier world, Olga enjoys traveling, learning new languages (she’s currently working on Portuguese), or volunteering. Says Olga, “There is nothing more rewarding than knowing that you made a positive change in someone’s life.’