Dancing has been integral to developing the self-discipline and relentless passion that I also channel into engineering work. During freshman year in high school, I joined a robotics club and it was then that I started to seriously consider pursuing engineering.
I knew when I arrived at Stanford that I wanted to participate in something like my robotics club, where I could work collaboratively on technically challenging projects. For the past year, I have been co-leading about 50 students on the Stanford Student Space Initiative (SSI) Rockets Team. This is our first year competing in the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition, where the goal is to reach precisely 30,000 feet, and we’ll be judged on the rocket’s performance, extent of student work and documentation. The competition will be June 20-24 at Spaceport America in New Mexico.
While I came into Stanford knowing that I wanted to study engineering, I wasn’t exactly sure what major to pick. I decided on Electrical Engineering because it was broad enough that I could apply this knowledge to many fields. Right now, I’m most excited by the intersection of electrical, mechanical and software engineering and the integration that makes complex systems possible. It’s a perfect combination for my work in SSI, and I love sharing my excitement with a community that’s been central to my Stanford experience.
PhD candidate
Materials Science and Engineering
I was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. We were surrounded by nature, so my siblings and friends and I spent a lot of time exploring the wilderness and getting lost in the woods.
Read Thomas Colburn's story