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Maria Schneider Highlight
If I don’t know exactly where I want to go, I go talk to people. Things happen and opportunities pop up, but they don’t happen if you sit around.
About Maria
- Attended New Mexico State University where she received bachelor’s degrees in physics and electrical engineering.
- Worked at NASA and, later Bell Labs, while getting her master’s degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
- After graduation, she worked at various small businesses and a medical clinic, but couldn’t find a job in biomedical engineering.
- Discovered a passion for construction after fixing up her own house—decided to start a construction company that hired ex-offenders to build and remodel “green” houses.
- Her son was born 3 months early with cerebral palsy and had to spend 3 months in intensive care—stopped running her company and dedicated herself to caring for him.
- Moved to Dallas—looking for an excuse to get out of the house, she got involved in the city’s efforts to alleviate poverty and racism, and decided to start a nonprofit that would revamp old houses.
- Was getting increasingly frustrated by the lack of treatments for her son, so she invented Flexdot™, a wearable sensor that detects the electrical signal emitted by nerves during muscle activation.
- Won a grant from the National Institutes of Health to further develop the technology and help kids like her son—started her company Dynofit, Inc. and launched the product with FDA approval.
