Education and engagement with the community

There are three reasons that motivate me to engage and educate members of the community. The first reason is to help increase diversity in engineering (for more information, see Increasing diversity in engineering). The second reason is to share my research to people outside of my subfield. The third reason is to get feedback from the community and to understand what the community needs from its engineers.

Communication is an essential skill I am developing in my PhD. Beyond learning how to write effective academic papers and give conference presentations, I am developing my ability to communicate my work to the broader pubic. I believe that my work is interesting and important, so it only makes sense to share my work by translating jargon-filled papers into language that is accessible to academics outside my subfield and to people outside of academia and engineering, at large.

One way I have developed non-academic communication skills is by attending the Michigan Communicating Science Conference held jointly by the University of Michigan and Michigan State. In this conference, my writing was critiqued by peers outside of my field and by writing experts in Michigan. I learned how to improve my writing, including having to explain what my research is to non-experts on the spot.

Additionally, I have been able to share my research to non-expert groups in other ways. For instance, I have helped older elementary school children and their parents by volunteering for the Xplore program at the University of Michigan. There, a group of PhD students and I got to help the student-parent pairs build truss bridges out of popsicle sticks and load-test them. Perhaps one of the most fun activities I have been able to volunteer for a couple times was teaching second grade students at Beacon Elementary School in Dexter, Michigan how to build truss bridges on a computer using the West Point Bridge Designer.

More specific to my work, I was able to help run a program at the Ann Arbor District Library in Michigan about origami engineering. By providing images about my research for a presentation and by helping students fold origami from paper, I found new ways to explain how origami could be used for engineering purposes.

As my career progresses, I want to use my engineering skills to address problems faced by the community and to communicate with them to find a solution that works.