In August, with the congratulatory cheers of June’s Commencement celebrations still ringing in their ears, a group of five 2024 College of Engineering graduates took their senior capstone project on an epic, two-week road trip.
At Oregon State University since 2019. Scott Bozeman’s expertise is in metallurgy, specifically investigating advanced structural materials and manufacturing techniques for clean energy systems.
Emma Sparkman doesn’t expect to do much welding after she graduates with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, but in the event the need arises, she’ll be ready.
Sparkman, along with five other College of Engineering students, learned welding, machining, electronics, and other applied manufacturing processes (including computer-aided design and programmable logic controllers) in a summer 2023 practicum conducted by the Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center.
In the summer of 2023, an instrumentation teaching lab on the third floor of Rogers Hall was transformed into the School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering’s new Industrial Automation Laboratory.
The redesigned facility features new workstations, 3D printers, a laser cutter, and dedicated space for project builds, along with modern robots, new cameras, projectors, and screens for instructional use including distance education.
In 2020, Kendra Sharp helped organize an international development design summit in Thailand. That’s where she met Bryan Hugill, who owns an organic rice farm in the northeastern part of the country.
Richard Wirz sometimes jokes that the word “aerospace” makes no sense.
“Aero means air, and space means the absence of air,” said Wirz, executive director for aerospace research programs and Boeing Professor of Mechanical Engineering Design at Oregon State University’s College of Engineering. “It’s like I study air and no air. Why are they even in the same category?”
While working as a senior mechanical design engineer for a large tech company, Samantha Kang, a doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering, bristled at the thought of migrant workers on the manufacturing floor being paid less than $4 an hour, to make a product that sells for hundreds. This social inequity motivated Kang to leave the industry.
