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My Path to Engineering

I grew up in Knoxville, Tenn., and I got my first exposure to engineering in high school when I joined my school’s FIRST Robotics team. While on the robotics team, I fell in love with engineering design and problem solving. I enjoyed both the software and hardware side of the robotics team, so when I started my undergraduate studies at the University of Tennessee Knoxville I choose electrical engineering to study in the area between computer science and mechanical engineering.Ìý

While at UT I did several internships that were focused on the computer science and mechanical engineering side of things at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Siemens, but I didn’t find my passion until the spring of my junior year when I started an undergraduate research position working with Dr. Daniel Costinett on power electronics. I love the fusion in power electronics of so many of electrical engineering’s subfields. We work with circuit design, controls, device physics, magnetics, high-speed communication, optimization, and more to conduct our research and I really enjoy bringing all these topics together.

I chose to go to graduate school after starting my undergraduate research at UT. I really enjoyed the process of research, the challenge of difficult problems, and the satisfaction of solving these problems. I also realized during my senior year that if I wanted to work with power electronics, graduate school was required to dive deep into the field. I wanted as much opportunity to conduct independent research as I could get, so I decided to pursue a PhD over a master’s.

I am currently working with Dr. Dragan Maksimović in the Colorado Power Electronics Center. My research is looking at the optimization of power electronics networks for single input multiple output systems and I plan to expand this to more general systems as I work towards my degree.

Why CU Â鶹ӰԺ?

My main reason for attending CU Â鶹ӰԺ is the research at the Colorado Power Electronics Center. There is extensive research in power electronics within CoPEC, and working with my colleagues in the lab is a great way to learn about the latest advances in the field. Their support also helps me in my own contributions to the field. I also thoroughly working with my advisor Professor Maksimović.Ìý

CU also has a fantastic selection of courses in power electronics; everything that you might want to know about power electronics can be found in courses here or at the other campuses in the CU system.Ìý

In addition to the great research and academic environment at CU, Â鶹ӰԺ is an amazing place to live. It’s a very relaxed city that very much has a college town feeling. The city puts a lot of effort into making Â鶹ӰԺ a nice place to live as well as putting together a nice transportation system. There are buses everywhere in the city as well as to Denver and the airport plus a huge system of bike paths that make biking in Â鶹ӰԺ a great experience.Ìý

Â鶹ӰԺ’s proximity to the mountains is also fantastic; there are spectacular hikes within walking distance of campus and the city’s bus network even runs to the closest ski resort. Within a few hours of driving there is a lifetime of hiking, climbing, mountain biking, skiing, and more. Living in Â鶹ӰԺ makes having a good work-life balance easy.