Prism Award

Sharon Rozzi, Ph.D., is senior director for external manufacturing collaboration management for Johnson & Johnson MedTech. As an engineering leader, she is building advanced end-to-end capabilities that enable partner collaboration resulting in new MedTech innovations and reliable supply for Johnson & Johnson’s orthopedic and surgery patients.

Dr. Rozzi’s diverse experience spans 35 years, with four multinational medical device companies — Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, and 3M — across several specialties, including dental products, implantable cardiac defibrillators, orthopedic implants and instruments, pain management therapies, and surgical devices. As a leader, she has developed many new medical device products; simplified and improved new product development processes; set company standards for lean manufacturing excellence; guided lean transformations of manufacturing operations; and managed an enterprise new product acceleration initiative, reducing time to market by 45% and driving continuous business process improvements. Dr. Rozzi holds 15 U.S. patents and was awarded the Medtronic Star of Excellence and the Women’s Leadership Network STEM Technical Leader Award.

A career-long advocate for women in leadership, Dr. Rozzi was a member of 3M’s women’s advisory council, where she helped shape gender policies and led the council’s transformation from 30 members to a women’s leadership network with thousands of members globally. Dr. Rozzi was also a SWEnet board advisor at Medtronic’s Memphis site, where her efforts resulted in hundreds of employees attending the SWE annual conference. During her tenure, the retention rate of women in engineering on the Memphis campus grew to exceed that of men.

Dr. Rozzi chartered the SWE Memphis Section and was its first president. She established a standard for strategic planning and goal setting for STEM outreach, member professional development, and member growth. From 2015 to 2017, membership tripled, and the section has since won multiple SWE Mission Awards.

She has contributed to community organizations throughout her career, among them FIRST^® LEGO League, FIRST^® Robotics, Minnesota’s Women’s Health Leadership TRUST, the West Tennessee STEM Hub and many more. She has also developed girls as leaders, volunteering with the St. Croix Valley Athletic Association as a member of the board and youth soccer and softball coach.

Dr. Rozzi received the Distinguished Service Award from The University of Memphis Herff College of Engineering and is a certified lean Six Sigma master black belt and master change manager. She holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from Cornell University, an MBA from the University of Minnesota, and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.

She and her husband, Bill, instilled a love of engineering in their two children, Marisa and Paul, who are now early-career electrical and mechanical engineers, respectively. The couple lives in New Jersey, where they enjoy hiking and New York City’s museums and theaters.