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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 ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Boulder?

My main reason for attending ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Boulder 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

ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ 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 ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ system.Ìý

In addition to the great research and academic environment at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½, Boulder 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 Boulder 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 Boulder a great experience.Ìý

Boulder’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 Boulder makes having a good work-life balance easy.