Spotlights
Thomas Colburn
PhD candidate
I was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. We were …
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Dhiraj Indana
PhD
Mechanical Engineering
My parents, who are both doctors, instilled in me a love of biology …
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Widya Mulyasasmita
PhD ’13
Bioengineering
To me, engineering is all about using scientific principles to design and improve our natural world …
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Julia Gillespie
Director of Finance & Operations
Institute for Computational & Mathematical Engineering
I’m the Director of Finance and Operations (DFO) for the Institute for Computational & …
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Kathryn Potts
Director of Analytics
I came to analytics after earning a PhD in linguistics, where I learned I love working in …
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Kylie Holland, Phoebe Wall and William Alvero Koski
MS candidates
Aeronautics and Astronautics, Mechanical Engineering
There’s not a lot of work being done on building habitats on other planets, but our Mars Team at …
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Mahilet Kasahun
Master's candidate
Civil & Environmental Engineering
Ethiopia, my country, is endowed with precious gifts of nature: fertile soil, a favorable climate …
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Karen Leung
PhD candidate
Aeronautics and Astronautics
#IAmAnEngineer: I work on developing algorithms that help robots understand the world around them, …
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Jodi Porter
Master’s Student
Civil & Environmental Engineering
When the pandemic happened, I started watching videos on the water situation in developing nations …
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Kathryn Hymes
MS ’13, MA ’21 Linguistics
Institute for Computational & Mathematical Engineering
#IAmAnEngineer: I’ve always had an appetite for both math and language, but for years I struggled …
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Amnahir Peña-Alcántara
PhD Student
Materials Science and Engineering
When I was a kid, I went to my older brother’s Lego League practices all the time. That’s really …
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Karsu Ipek Kilic
PhD candidate
Mechanical Engineering
I’m from a very small city in Turkey where my parents were physics professors at its only …
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Jill Filice
Student Services Specialist
Civil & Environmental Engineering
Stanford was my second job out of college but I’ve been here 31 years – and every single one of …
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Sasha Denisin
PhD ’18
Bioengineering
#IAmAnEngineer: I work in biotech, where I make experiments more efficient and hands-off using …
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Dana Cortade
PhD Candidate
Materials Science and Engineering
After a childhood seeing loved ones with mental health issues struggle with incorrect diagnoses and …
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Kirsti Copeland
Associate Dean of Student Affairs
I think of myself as a pivot between university decisions and the school student services staff in …
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Ovijit Chaudhuri
Associate Professor
Mechanical Engineering
#IAmAnEngineer: As an undergraduate I was passionate about math and physics, and I knew I wanted to …
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Kendall Beache
Coterminal MS candidate ’22
Computer Science
One of the things that’s really important to me is working to support marginalized youth to build …
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LaToya Powell
Graduate Admissions Officer
Computer Science
I’ve been at SoE for almost five years and I love my job. I’m a science nerd, a Star Trek fan, …
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Kumiko Jacobs
Faculty Affairs and Staff Administrator
Chemical Engineering
I moved to the U.S. in 2014 from Tokyo, Japan, where I was a personal executive assistant to a CEO …
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Linny Le
Lead Research and Finance Administrator
Bioengineering
My job has always been a roller coaster – in a good way …
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Bryce Johnson
Coterminal MS candidate
Computer Science
My path to engineering started when I was 9 and went to see the movie ‘Iron Man’ with my family …
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