EECS-Alumni-Stories

Terri Fiez was elected to the 2018 Academy of Distinguished Engineers, an award from the College of Engineering at Oregon State University.

Terri Fiez applied the lessons in leadership she gained as a Ph.D. student at Oregon State University to her career as a professor, entrepreneur, and university academic leader. But her commitment to education was part of a family tradition: Her grandmother was a teacher for 36 years, her father was a professor of education, and her mother was an English teacher.

In 2011, Terri Fiez saw a growing crisis for Northwest tech companies  that could not find enough computer science graduates to fill their job openings. In her role as head of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University, she decided to meet that need by creating the country’s first online computer science program specifically designed for postbaccalaureate students.

Earthquake resilience, RNA sequencing, and ambient light sensors were the topics of the award-winning presentations from the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the College of Engineering Graduate Research Showcase.

The three graduate student winners earned the honor of presenting their research at the Oregon Stater Awards in Portland, where they were able to network with alumni and industry partners.

Sharada Bose spoke to engineering students while in Oregon to receive an award from the College of Engineering.

At age 19, Sharada Bose moved from India to Corvallis, Oregon, having never been in the U.S. before. It was 1981, and she recalls being amazed at the cash registers in Fred Meyer, thinking they were computers. It was her lack of knowledge that inspired her to pursue computer science.

“I didn’t want to be in the I-don’t-know camp,” Bose said.

Alumna Nadia Payet returns to Oregon State to inspire students to stay with engineering and to give advice about how to land a job at Google.

Nadia Payet did not expect to find herself at Google when she was growing up in Réunion, a French island near Madagascar. But Oregon State University expanded her vision of what she could become. Her story is one she hopes will inspire others, especially other women in technology fields and young people from her home town.

Paul McKenney arrived on the Oregon State University campus 40 years ago as a freshman majoring in computer science. Computer science was so new he decided to also pursue a second degree in mechanical engineering in case computers did not pan out. Although the mechanical engineering degree came in handy over the years for computer projects that required mechanical knowledge, computer science panned out just fine as a career.

Marcus Turner has no doubt as to how he managed a successful career in computer science, which began at Hewlett-Packard in Corvallis. 

“The best thing my parents ever did for me was to instill a drive and passion to be the hardest worker,” Turner said.

It paid off on his first day at Hewlett-Packard, when he was instantly promoted with new responsibilities. In preparation for his new job he had completed the work they wanted him to do in his first month.