SheTech Interns Interview Dr. Atim Enyenihi

Salt Lake City, Utah - April 7, 2025

From Lab to Talent Pipeline: Dr. Atim Enyenihi Shares Insights on Building Pathways, Breaking Barriers, and Talent Development

"The real problem is retention," says Dr. Atim Enyenihi, Technology and Innovation Strategic Industry Advisor at the Salt Lake City Department of Economic Development, a position she was appointed in March 2024. It's a point she drives home frequently in her work. While much of the national STEM conversation centers on recruitment, Dr. Enyenihi is focused on what happens after people enter the field: how to keep them there, growing, connected, and fulfilled.

As the Tech Accelerator Awardee for the 2024 Women Tech Awards, Dr. Enyenihi is helping reshape Salt Lake City's tech ecosystem—from workforce development to biotech innovation to early talent cultivation.

A Public Sector Strategist with a Startup Mentality

At the Salt Lake City Department of Economic Development, Dr. Enyenihi leads initiatives designed to close skill gaps in critical sectors including software, biotech, and fintech. That includes launching internship pipelines, workforce-aligned courses, and industry partnerships. One example: a new software course taught by Agile Manifesto co-author Alistair Cockburn, aimed at giving students hands-on skills grounded in industry best practices.

"We’re building from the ground up and looking for what’s missing—not just plugging holes but rethinking the whole structure," she said.

Retention Over Recruitment

Dr. Enyenihi’s focus on retention comes from experience. She points to a lack of mentorship, limited mobility, and a lack of diversity as the primary reasons women and underrepresented groups leave STEM fields.

"You can get people in the door, but if they don’t see anyone like them in leadership or don’t have anyone to guide them, they’ll eventually walk away," she explains. Her strategy: build inclusive environments where different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives aren’t just welcomed—they’re critical.

From Middle School to Industry

Looking downstream, she’s also thinking about the next generation. Dr. Enyenihi helps lead Human Innovation Day: Exploring Career Paths to Biotechnology, an annual March event supported by the Salt Lake Education Foundation and Mayor Erin Mendenhall's Tech Lake City initiative. The 2025 event will expose middle schoolers to real-world applications of biotech—from sustainable aviation fuel to bioreactors.

"We talk about biotech in three dimensions: to heal the world, feed the world, and fuel the world," she says. The goal is early exposure. “If you don’t show students the landscape, how can they navigate it?”

Biotech with Urgency

Before shifting to workforce development, Dr. Enyenihi was in the lab. Her graduate work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill focused on drug therapies for acute myeloid leukemia, using analytical chemistry to identify anti-cancer targets now being developed into CAR T-cell therapies.

She also helped develop a newborn diagnostic screening for X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (X-ALD), a genetic disorder often caught too late. X-ALD is a debilitating genetic disorder that affects the nervous system, with symptoms typically emerging in early childhood, Dr. Enyenihi explained. Early identification through newborn screening allows for timely intervention, including stem cell transplants, which can prevent disease progression.

“It’s powerful to detect a disease early and change the outcome. But eventually, I wanted to be closer to the people those outcomes affect.”

A Global Journey, A Local Impact

Born in Nigeria and raised in Dominica before immigrating to the U.S. in high school, Dr. Enyenihi is familiar with navigating unfamiliar systems. She taught herself the U.S. education system, learned English, and later studied chemistry at the University of Missouri. She was awarded a McNair Scholars scholarship and pursued research in analytical chemistry, studying abroad in Mexico and Spain to further her Spanish fluency—a skill she still uses in regulatory biotech work.

Her background informs her approach: “You have to know your why,” she says. "Success for me would mean success for my entire family. That kept me going."

STEM as a Launchpad

When asked what advice she’d give students entering STEM fields, she doesn’t hesitate: “STEM is your platform. It’s a launch pad. You don’t have to follow someone else’s track—you can make your own.”

Her talks at events like the Intermountain Biological Engineering Conference at Utah State University (November 2024) and Women4STEM at Weber State University (March 2025) don’t shy away from the challenges. “I’m a big proponent of being real. Students deserve the truth so they can make decisions they’ll thrive in."

Sometimes that truth lands hard: “At one talk, people had tears in their eyes. It wasn’t about success stories—it was about their stories, reflected back at them.”

Whether she’s developing future therapies or future technologists, Dr. Enyenihi is focused on the long game: building systems where people can grow—and stay.

Isabelle Wolchek and Lexaide (Lexi) Araujo are SheTech Student Board members and SheTech Media Interns with the Women Tech Council and TechBuzz News.

Isabelle is a senior attending DaVinci Academy of Science and the Arts in Ogden, Utah, where she started a SheTech Chapter and conducts university-level research in molecular medicine. She will continue her education at Yale University later this year.

Lexi is a junior attending American Preparatory Academy, where she participates in the yearbook committee, volunteers with N.M.D.P, plays violin, and performs with her Mariachi band.

Both Isabelle and Lexi attended several Women Tech Council events, Student Board meetings, and other SheTech events. They interview and write about Women Tech Awardees. Their work is published on TechBuzz News, Silicon Slopes, and other media channels.