Engineering Advantage

Engineering ADVANTAGE

Mission, Vision & Values

Strategic plan will serve as a road map for the next five years

4 FROM THE DESK OF DEAN AMY S. FLEISCHER

The path to our newly implemented mission and vision was truly a collaborative one.

5 LEADING FOR SUCCESS

Meet the Dean’s Advisory Council.

INSIDE THE COLLEGE

6 DEAF STUDENT, INTERPRETER ENHANCING CULTURE OF THE ENGINEERING COLLEGE

Mechanical engineering student Yosef Towfique and interpretor Jennifer Beevers are navigating engineering possibilities together.

8 THE NOYCE SCHOOL OF APPLIED COMPUTING FOUNDING DIRECTOR NAMED

The College of Engineering will change the future of interdisciplinary collaboration with Founding Director of The Noyce School of Applied Sciences Chris Lupo.

9 CAL POLY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB AND MATERIALS ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT CELEBRATE

10 AVIATION SPOKEN HERE

Professor envisions university-owned airport hangar as the next step in the evolution of the Aerospace Engineering Department.

14 LESSONS FROM A GREEN SAND BEACH

Team from Cal Poly visits Hawaii to study carbon capture material that could help combat climate change.

18 THIS IS SPINAL TAPE

Biomedical engineering professors develop innovative tape that monitors spinal movement and raises posture awareness.

FEATURES

20 ENGINEERING A STRATEGIC PLAN

The college’s strategic plan will double down on inclusive Learn by Doing and serve as a road map for the college for the next five years.

24 ENGINEERING NEW SOUNDS

Computer engineering student and street music artist builds his own audio equipment to enhance his performances.

28 ENGINEERING A HAND

Designing and building a prosthetic hand for a fellow student is the yearlong project for a team from the Empower Club.

32 ENGINEERING AN ECO-FRIENDLY SKI

General engineering student aims to change the ski industry by developing sustainable practices for a new business launch.

ALUMNI

34 TIME TRAVELS

Two Cal Poly grads help astronomers explore the mysteries of space with their work on the James Webb Space Telescope.

38 FIND THEM QUICKER

Since his student days at Cal Poly, Gary Bloom has helped find the missing as a search and rescue volunteer.

40 STILL SOARING

Cal Poly engineering alumni and Air Force F-22 pilots discover a Cal Poly connection across the country.

44 CONNECTING UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES

After graduation, Jen Overgaag traveled the globe and found her calling — bringing information technology to the world.

GIVING BACK

46 BRIDGING THE ENGINEERING GAP

Industrial and manufacturing engineering alumnus Mike Hammons aims to help women in engineering graduate.

47 WORKING TO MAKE EDUCATION AFFORDABLE Industrial engineering alumna Dawn Posey establishes an endowment to help lower tuition costs for students in need.

Cover Photograph: Aerospace engineering student Arielle Sampson studies in Engineering Plaza with reminders of the College of Engineering’s mission and vision statements on the cover of her laptop.

| College of Engineering

Engineering Advantage is published by the Cal Poly College of Engineering

College of Engineering

1 Grand Ave., San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 (805) 756-2131 | ceng.calpoly.edu

Photo by Dennis Steers

THE COLLEGE

DEAN

Amy S. Fleischer | afleisch@calpoly.edu

ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR SAFETY AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Charles Chadwell | chadwell@calpoly.edu

ASSOCIATE DEAN OF DIVERSITY AND STUDENT SUCCESS

Zoë Wood | zwood@calpoly.edu

INTERIM ASSOCIATE DEAN

Bridget Benson | bbenson@calpoly.edu

ASSISTANT DEAN OF ADVANCEMENT AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS

Amy Blosser Spikes | spikes@calpoly.edu

DIRECTOR, MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS

Charlotte Tallman | ctallman@calpoly.edu

COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST

Emily Slater | emslater@calpoly.edu

COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST

Taylor Villanueva | tvilla02@calpoly.edu

DESIGNER AND PHOTOGRAPHER

Dennis Steers | dsteers@calpoly.edu

CONTRIBUTING DESIGNER

Isabella Walker | iswalker@calpoly.edu

SOCIAL MEDIA

CalPolySLOEngineering

calpolyengineering

PolyEngineering

polyengineering

Environmental engineering

Professor

emeritus

Yarrow Nelson, left, and Cal Poly students Bip Padrnos and Casper Pratt, collect ocean water at the Cal Poly Research Pier as part of a research project that could help combat climate change. See article on Page 14.

Photo by Dennis Steers | College of Engineering

Moving Forward

Instagram: dramyfleischer

Twitter: @amyfleischer

LinkedIn: Amy Fleischer

In this issue of Engineering Advantage, we highlight the many wonderful ways in which our faculty and students are making a positive impact on the world around them. Throughout these pages, you will see that Cal Poly Engineering is accomplishing a clear mission — providing an excellent Learn by Doing engineering and computer science education in which our students learn to innovate, design and create sustainable solutions to real-world challenges.

In fact, we proudly rolled out this new mission in December 2022, along with a new vision, values and strategic priorities as part of our 2022-2027 strategic plan (see page 20). The road to our newly implemented mission and vision was truly a collaborative one. Over a one-year period, more than 1,600 members of our College of Engineering community participated in the plan formation in some way – be it through a workshop, survey, focus group or interview. A truly dedicated 15-member committee of students, faculty and staff members across the college then sorted through

all that input to identify common themes and develop the cornerstones of our five-year plan strategic plan.

Together, we will use this plan to focus our efforts over the next five years, including using the impending transition to semesters as a true opportunity to advance key aspects of our vision and strategic priorities. We will utilize this curricular transformation to embed a focus on student success as we design unique and inclusive Learn by Doing educational and applied research experiences. Our strategic plan will set the foundation for great things to happen as we move forward.

Amy S. Fleischer Dean, College of Engineering

Dean’s Advisory Council

Kim Vorrath (Computer Science, ‘88), Chair

—Apple Inc.

Beena Ammanath

—Deloitte US

Geoff Austin (Industrial Engineering, ‘92)

—Principal Consultant – Flywheel Consultants

—Clinical Instructor – University of Washington Medical Center / Northwest Hospital and Medical Center

Steve Beeks

—NEXT Strategy Advisors

Brent Fogg (Civil Engineering, ‘06)

—Granite Construction Inc.

Peter Gillespie (Mechanical Engineering, ‘86)

—Advanced Energy

Michael Huggins

—Air Force Research Laboratory

Aerospace Systems Directorate

Teniel Jones (Industrial Engineering, ‘02)

—Base 11

Leslie Livesay (Mathematics, ‘85)

—NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

—Northrop Grumman Air Dominance Division

Kevin Neifert (Mechanical Engineering, ‘84)

—Thales North America

Wilbert Odisho (Electrical Engineering, ‘95)

—KLA Corp.

David Rosa (Mechanical Engineering, ‘89)

—Intuitive Surgical

Tim Seidel

—Phillips 66

—Western Allied Mechanical Inc.

Bill Watkins (Mechanical Engineering, ‘98)

—Solar Turbines Inc.

Bob Weiss (Materials Engineering, ‘05)

—Boeing

Jocelyn Williams

—Raytheon Intelligence and Space

Dee Wilson (Aerospace Engineering, ‘97)

—General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc.

Honored Alumna Angie Simon

Congratulations to Dean’s Advisory Board member Angela Simon (Environmental Engineering, ’86), who was named Cal Poly Engineering’s 2022 Honored Alumni.

Simon is an advocate of the College of Engineering and Cal Poly Athletics. A former softball player, Simon has created a scholarship to support female athletes in the College of Engineering.

She currently serves as an advisor to the board at Western Allied Mechanical Inc. and is the president and co-founder of the Heavy Metal Summer Experience, a summer camp opportunity for high school youth to learn about trades.

Watch Simon’s Honored Alumni video using the QR code above.

‘86)

The Dean’s Advisory Council and College of Engineering administrators gather in Engineering Plaza in November.

Kevin Mickey

Angie Simon (Environmental Engineering,

Deaf Student, Interpreter Enhancing Culture of Engineering

Mechanical engineering student Yosef Towfique was born to the sounds of the outside world that suddenly went quiet after his second birthday.

The unexplained, rapid loss couldn’t be tied to an injury or illness, and hearing aids proved ineffective, he said.

While Towfique and his family created basic gestures they used at their home in Tracy, California, he didn’t have a complete language until kindergarten, when he was enrolled in a Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing program.

Towfique learned the movements of the hands and face that constitute American Sign Language, allowing him to understand the world through visual descriptions and make meaningful connections to those around him. Few of Towfique’s peers at Cal Poly use ASL, but he is determined to relate to them through an ASL Interpreter who has a background in engineering and a dedication to the Deaf community.

“Yosef has opened other students’ minds to what deaf people can do,” said Jennifer Beevers, who is accompanying Towfique through college. “When a student-interpreter team goes into a classroom, they improve the worldview and accessibility awareness for everyone in that class.”

Teaming Up

Towfique was fitted with a cochlear implant around the time he was learning ASL, which enabled him to hear some speech and supported the development of language skills through speech therapy.

He attended mainstream schools, accompanied by an interpreter, as he developed an affinity for woodworking — crafting

furniture for his home — then metalworking under the guidance of his dad and other employees.

Towfique’s dad, who emigrated from Afghanistan, assembles a variety of sheet metal products at his sheet metal fabrication company. He officially joined his dad at the company as a senior in high school and continued while he attended Los Positas College, a community college in Livermore.

Towfique transferred to the College of Engineering in fall 2021 as a junior, following in the footsteps of a family member who had studied mechanical engineering at Cal Poly and praised the program.

“Learn by Doing is important to me,” Towfique said of his decision. “I loved the idea of having hands-on engineering labs and classes.”

As soon as Disability Resource Center staff learned Towfique had chosen Cal Poly, they enlisted Beevers to be his primary interpreter.

Beevers, who grew up in Los Osos, became a Civil Air Patrol cadet at age 12 and learned to fly before she could drive. She spent summers at the family business making granite surface plates and the school year using American Sign Language with friends, one of whom had a deaf sister.

She studied behavioral science at Cuesta College before shifting to a Deaf Studies and Interpreter training program at the University of Arizona that emphasized educational interpreting.

“The sign language I learned as a child came back so easily,”

by Emily Slater | Photos by Dennis Steers

Mechanical engineering student Yosef Towfique communicates with American Sign Language.

Beevers said. “It felt like the universe had confirmed this was my calling.”

She interpreted at the Arizona School for the Deaf in mainstream classes before taking a dream job at Raytheon Missiles & Defense that thrust her into the world of engineering.

While at the Tucson factory, she interpreted meetings and training sessions for deaf industrial and mechanical engineers and even a theoretical physicist.

“I saw every phase of production, from the design to the building and delivery of missiles,” she said. “I wanted to do my small part to make sure the systems that save people’s lives worked.”

Beevers returned home to care for her mom in 2011 and was promptly hired by Cal Poly as an interpreter. Her first engineering student arrived in 2014 and Towfique followed seven years later, much to her delight.

The two met during a chaotic Week of Welcome event, but once they got into a calm classroom setting, Beevers and Towfique quickly built trust and mutual respect.

“Yosef is wise beyond his years,” she said. “He’s friendly, humble and very patient with people.”

Towfique added the two make a great team but joked there’s a fringe benefit for Beevers: “She’s getting a free education in mechanical engineering,” he said with a big grin.

‘What Sign Are We Learning Today?’

On a recent afternoon, Beevers and Towfique signed to each other as they walked down a hallway in Building 192 to attend his senior project class.

Sarah Harding, who leads the class, asks her mechanical engineering students each week for a word or phrase they want to learn in ASL.

“What sign are we learning today?” she shouted over the din of students working in their project teams.

“Hungry!,” the students responded as Towfique taught them the sign, forming his right hand into the letter “c” and moving it down the middle of his chest.

Towfique is on a team with three other mechanical engineering seniors — Derek Cedillo, Jairo Fernandez Garcia and Alejandro Samaniego — who are exploring an underground device that can generate power from the passage of motor vehicles over a roadway.

They huddled to discuss ideas for the project they will collaborate on for 30 weeks.

Beevers sat near the group, interpreting for Towfique. Her knowledge from her years at Raytheon and with the Civil Air Patrol proves invaluable, as she understands the fundamental principles. For more specific concepts, she reads Towfique’s textbooks: “Engineering has such a specific lexicon that it’s important to have accurate definitions,” she said.

Samaniego said their group relies on Beevers to ease communication in class but adopts alternate methods for out-of-class meetings.

“I can speech-read if they are talking slowly and clearly, but we also text and write,” Towfique explained. “Communication has been challenging, but I’m used to it.”

He was surprised upon his arrival at Cal Poly to learn many of his classmates and teammates in Cal Poly Racing — where he helped fabricate a steering wheel for the Formula SAE car — had not met a deaf person. He wishes more hearing people would learn ASL through their high school or college classes so they could expand their ability to interact with others.

Beevers will continue to interpret until he finishes classes in the fall. She plans to stay in touch with Towfique as he seeks a job in design or manufacturing and the senior project team that has embraced her.

“Yosef has helped a lot of students at Cal Poly to see what is possible,” she said as the two resumed signing on their way to rejoin the team. ■

Improving Access

Jennifer Beevers is passionate about ensuring accessibility for deaf students, and she believes visual support is the key.

She encourages staff and faculty to use visual descriptions of the concepts they are teaching, which can take the form of pictures, graphs, posters, charts or flash cards.

“I ask clarifying questions when I’m in the classroom, such as, ‘Is there a physical picture you can write on the board?’” Beevers explained.

She also advocates for captions that display words as the textual equivalent of spoken dialogue.

“Creating accessible visuals improves the literacy of all students,” she added.

Noyce School of Applied Computing Names New Founding Director

Chris Lupo, one of the College of Engineering’s very own, was named the founding director of the Noyce School of Applied Computing. Chris Lupo, Ph.D., was named the new director in March.

Lupo, a faculty member at Cal Poly since 2008, most recently served as chair of the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department. His efforts there have been a guiding force on integrating the college’s strategic priorities, and he has been a leader in increasing justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.

The Noyce School of Applied Computing is a new interdisciplinary school (the first of its kind at Cal Poly) combining three departments — Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Software Engineering, and Computer Engineering — to create interdisciplinary collaboration opportunities for departments and faculty doing applied computing across the university in fields such as statistics.

The school is made possible by donations from the Robert N. Noyce Trust — with its intention to make an eight-figure bequest to Cal Poly’s College of Engineering. Robert N. Noyce was a co-founder of Intel and inventor of the integrated circuit, which fueled the personal computer revolution and gave Silicon Valley its name.

“By combining these three departments into one endowed school, we’ll be able to create new resources for students and faculty in the application of computing, develop unique educational student experiences and support interdisciplinary and collaborative research, teaching and learning within this field,” said Amy Fleischer, dean of the College of Engineering.

As the founding director, Lupo will work in partnership with the faculty, Fleischer and the entire university community to establish and execute a broad and inspirational vision for the school, and to foster interdisciplinary collaboration opportunities for faculty and departments involved in applied computing across the university.

Lupo earned his doctorate and master’s degrees in computer engineering from the University of California, Davis, and his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from California State University, Fresno. ■

Chris Lupo, Ph.D.

by Charlotte Tallman | Photo by Dennis Steers

The Noyce School of Applied Computing is combining three departments under one umbrella — Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Software Engineering, and Computer Engineering — to create interdisciplinary collaboration opportunities across campus.

‘The first of its kind at Cal Poly’

Cal Poly Amateur Radio Club Celebrates 75th Anniversary

Great things are happening in Cal Poly’s Ameteur Radio Club! Students and alumni came together to honor the Cal Poly Amateur Radio Club’s 75th anniversary in the fall, and in the spring, the club celebrated a big milestone, achieving their 2000th license as a student run team. The 2000th licensee was Cal Poly alumnus and iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens. The weekend-long celebration incorporated activities ranging from barbecues and hikes to learning the club’s history and testing radio devices.

CPARC President Mathew Shaham (Electrical Engineering) shared his enthusiasm for the club and the significance of celebrating its milestone year.

“CPARC is one of the oldest clubs on campus with records as far back as 1947,” Shaham said. “The club supports the classic Learn by Doing approach by involving members in projects that have significance to the overall community.”■

MATE DEPARTMENT CELEBRATES 60TH ANNIVERSARY

In 1958, the School of Engineering produced a plan for additional majors. Richard C. (R.C.) Wiley, who was running the engineering weld shop, was asked by the dean to put together a metallurgy department. Despite lacking money and space, Wiley was able to start the department out of the weld shop and put together a proposal for the new major that was approved by Cal Poly. He scraped together additional funds and began hiring professors, and was able to get the department up and running. The first class graduated in 1962 and included only 12 students. Over the years, the department has grown larger while keeping its culture of fostering close relationships between faculty and students. ■

— Trevor Harding, MATE Department Chair

CPARC students and alumni celebrate the club’s 75th anniversary.

Materials engineering 1980 alumni Steve Patterson and Bob Adams stand near the stainless steel part of “Atom Shifter,” a sculpture they designed and built to honor the MATE Department’s first chair, R.C. Wiley, and the department’s 60th anniversary. The sculpture depicts two common arrangements of iron magnified approximately 1.7 billion times.

Photo by Dennis Steers | College of Engineering

Photo Courtesy of CPARC

Aviation Spoken Here

Professor envisions university-owned airport hangar as the next step in the evolution of the Aerospace Engineering Department

Cal Poly Professor Paulo Iscold’s simple belief is driving one of the most innovative projects in the College of Engineering: “Everyone likes airplanes.”

Or loves airplanes, in the case of Iscold.

The aerospace engineering professor, whose presence is as big as his vision, led a recent tour through the hangar the university rents at the San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport. He spends countless hours there teaching students how to work in an aviation environment while he dreams about a permanent space for the endeavor.

Iscold’s wife once posited that not everyone may be as enamored with airplanes as he is, but the Brazilian who grew up watching his father design airplanes and then broke speed records with his own constructions will not be swayed. Iscold knows that by introducing as many students as he can to the environment he loves, they will develop a similar passion for airplanes and flight.

“Look at those who are succeeding: They have that component of passion,” Iscold said. “And it’s easy to develop that passion in this space.”

For the first time last fall, aerospace engineering students gathered in a

by Emily Slater | Photos by Joe Johnstone | Cal Poly and Dennis Steers

Cal Poly’s new Cirrus SR22T aircraft is kept in a rented hangar at the San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport, about 6 miles from campus. The 26-foot-long aircraft has a wingspan of 38 feet.

“We are enabling and empowering our Cal Poly students to be aerospace engineers in an environment that evokes a sense of wonder and possibility. We really are leaning into the culture and feeling of being an engineer.”

— Amy S. Fleischer College of Engineering Dean

ground station unique to Cal Poly where they recorded engine data, air speed and radio communications while the university’s airplane was in flight overhead, gaining real-world experience.

College of Engineering Dean Amy Fleischer calls the hangar an “enabling space” that presents students with a unique applied research experience at a one-of-a-kind facility.

“We are enabling and empowering our Cal Poly students to be aerospace engineers in an environment that evokes a sense of wonder and possibility,” Fleischer said. “We really are leaning into the culture and feeling of being an engineer.”

Opening Doors

Visitors to the hangar are greeted by a sign on the front door that reminds all who enter “aviation is spoken here” as their first sight is Cal Poly’s gleaming white Cirrus SR22T.

“There is that ‘whoa factor’ right away,” said Iscold who added it’s impossible not to react to the four-seat, single-engine airplane in front of them.

While the natural inclination may be to swing wide of the plane, Iscold encourages just the opposite. He wants everyone entering to get as close as possible to the plane that is instrumental to students pursuing aviation performance careers.

“We aren’t training pilots, but we are introducing our students to the environment where aerospace engineers operate, which many of our students have never experienced,” Iscold said.

Some, he said, have not seen an airplane up close, let alone

flown in one, and Iscold knows that hands-on experience is integral to their success in the program and later in the real world.

In the hangar’s lower level, Iscold teaches his students how to inspect the plane, check fuel levels, manage the engine and complete a checklist of takeoff procedures.

With Iscold taking the lead, the group readies the plane for departure together, but as they learn and grow, the professor puts more responsibility on the students themselves. Iscold pinpoints a moment in his instruction when he poses this preflight question to an individual: “Am I good to go?” The reactions run the gamut, he said, from confidence to second-guessing but they all reveal an understanding of their crucial role in flight preparation.

In the ground station on the hangar’s upper level, students learn the language of flying. Aviation culture has its own lingo — just as in surf culture — that members must adopt to navigate effectively. Students are taught to communicate over the radio in a clear, concise way and collaborate as they record an immense amount of information coming in from the skies.

“We expose students to the real world while they are still inside the aquarium,” Iscold explained. “We can protect them as they learn, then send them out with the skills and passion to achieve excellence.”

Airport Hangar is a ‘Game Changer’

For future aerospace engineers, learning in an aviation environment is a game changer, according to Class of 2020 graduate Zach Yamauchi.

“There is a massive difference between graduates who have that hands-on experience versus those who only learned in a

“We aren’t training pilots, but we are introducing our students to the environment where aerospace engineers operate, which many of our students have never experienced.”

— Paulo Iscold Aerospace Engineering Professor

Aerospace engineering Professor Paulo Iscold uses a model to demonstrate basic concepts of aerodynamics in Cal Poly’s new ground station at the San Luis Obispo Regional Airport.

classroom with textbooks. It’s not even a comparison,” said Yamauchi, who now works as an aerospace engineer at a local company that develops unmanned aircraft.

Yamauchi still talks excitedly about his work with Iscold to complete the sailplane Nixus Iscold brought with him upon his arrival to Cal Poly in 2018.

Students gathered at Cal Poly’s hangar space on weekends to help Iscold construct the first manned general aviation fly-by-wire aircraft. In the process, they learned about composite construction, rigging, connecting control surfaces, avionics and the electric fly-by-wire system.

Yamauchi believes those hangar lessons gave him a distinct advantage over his peers who didn’t learn in a similar space. “It really set me up for success,” he said.

Both Yamauchi and Iscold champion a Cal Poly-owned hangar that could house more planes and accommodate more students.

Cal Poly has two planes — the Cirrus SR22T and Van’s Aircraft RV-7 kit craft — but the rented hangar can’t hold both at the same time along with all the equipment and machines needed for prototyping performance modifications.

A larger space with greater accessibility could accommodate more than the 12 students who now can gather in the hangar’s ground station at one time, while faculty offices could bring more

professors on-site.

But Iscold’s vision doesn’t stop there.

He ponders the prospects for testing drone intelligence, furthering partnerships with aerospace companies and employing students at a Cal Poly-owned hangar.

“We really can push the envelope of what’s possible,” Yamauchi agreed. ■

Iscold pulls the new Cirrus SR22T aircraft out of the hangar for a test flight. Below, College of Engineering Dean Amy S. Fleischer and Cal Poly President Jeffrey D. Armstrong listen to the audio of a test flight while on a tour of the hangar.

Combating Climate Change on a Green-Sand Beach

Team from Cal Poly visits Hawaii to study carbon capture

by

Packing for a beach day in Hawaii for most means reef-safe sunscreen, swimming shoes and snorkel gear but not if that shoreline visit is part of a mission to reverse climate change.

In that case, one needs seven pallets of scientific research equipment.

An international team of experts from the environmental, geochemical and biological sciences — including a Cal Poly professor and two students — spent a month last summer at mobile research stations on Big Island beaches to study a green volcanic mineral known as olivine that reduces ocean acidity and captures the carbon dioxide driving climate change.

Early each morning, the group would load up trucks with sampling and analytical equipment, plus a boat, and head for South Point, the southernmost point of land in the U.S., where they would devote their day to diving, sampling and testing.

The team’s research will paint a clearer picture of the risks and impacts of radically accelerating the weathering of olivine by spreading copious amounts onto coastlines where it can

dissolve in seawater, increasing the rate of carbon dioxide absorption by the ocean.

Natural weathering happens too slowly to balance human carbon emissions but, if done safely and effectively, hastening the process could capture billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Environmental engineering emeritus Professor Yarrow Nelson said the race is on to reduce emissions after a climate report last year predicted more wildfires, floods, heat waves and water shortages over the next 30 years due to a rise in global temperatures that now calls for carbon sequestration to reverse.

“While we still have to reduce fossil fuels, that’s not enough anymore. We just aren’t cutting it,” said Nelson, who now believes sequestering carbon is essential to climate change mitigation.

The Team Forms

When Casper Pratt began studying environmental engineering at Cal Poly, the San Francisco resident discovered the website for Vesta, a public benefit corporation exploring how to harness the carbon-capturing power of the olivine

Emily Slater | Photos courtesy of Yarrow Nelson

crystals that form natural green beaches.

Pratt said Vesta’s area of research aligned with his own interests in biology, chemistry and physics, so he reached out to the head of research to join the effort.

Vesta put Pratt to work modeling the hydrology of a beach in the Dominican Republic, but the then-first-year student had yet to be trained in groundwater hydrology.

Pratt was not deterred, however, and enlisted help from Nelson and the Vesta team to guide his work.

Along the way, Vesta realized that Nelson’s expertise on toxic trace metals in aquatic environments could help Vesta decide how much olivine is safe to add to a beach given the mineral contains nickel, chromium and cobalt which could harm marine life.

Nelson received a $38,000 Vesta grant and needed a graduate student for the research, so he asked his students if any were inclined to follow in the footsteps of the father of climate change.

“I asked for anyone on the level of Svante Arrhenius who wanted to help on a climate change project,” Nelson recalled of the reference to the Swedish physicist and chemist who was the first to claim in 1896 that fossil fuel combustion may eventually result in enhanced global warming.

Bip Padrnos, then a senior in Nelson’s class, laughed upon recalling the request, knowing he couldn’t promise Arrheniusstyle results but that he loved the idea.

“This project is so important, and I wanted to be involved,” Padrnos said.

A Sea Cucumber on a Green-Sand Beach

Pratt, now in his third year, and Padrnos, who is in the blended master’s program, joined Vesta’s research team in Hawaii in July, where home base was an Airbnb and their workplace a beach.

The team set up their mobile research station at one of three sites — green-sand Papakolea, white-sand Kua Bay or black-

Environmental engineering emeritus Professor Yarrow Nelson, from left, and Cal Poly students Bip Padrnos and Casper Pratt, collected ocean water at the Cal Poly Research Pier. The team uses filtered seawater while studying the mineral olivine collected in Hawaii back in the lab at Cal Poly.

Photo: Dennis Steers | College of Engineering

sand Richardson Beach Park — for a full day of collecting and analyzing seawater and sediment samples, with an occasional surf break.

The setup always attracted tourists, and even a school class, sparking many conversations about climate change.

Padrnos, Pratt and Nelson conducted sampling in conjunction with the larger Vesta team, diving at various depths and locations using syringes, tubes and even buckets to gather materials.

“It was special to be at a beach in Hawaii collecting our own samples,” said Padrnos, who grew up in Waimea. “Being there gave us a full sense of what was going on as we knew each spot and condition under which a particular sample was collected.”

Padrnos recalled one particularly memorable day at Papakolea when the team sampled until 8:30 p.m., using truck headlights to illuminate their research station.

Pratt, who was born into a surfing family in San Francisco, said a highlight

What’s Next?

The research that began in Hawaii is progressing, as Professor Yarrow Nelson works with student researchers Bip Padrnos and Casper Pratt to develop their experimental designs and design specific experiments at Cal Poly.

Padrnos returned from the Big Island with 4 liters of sediment that he’s spiking with trace metals so the trio can ascertain how the metals will move into the ocean and impact marine ecosystems.

was driving the Zodiac inflatable boat to transport Vesta’s scuba dive team amid 10-foot waves, as researchers struggled to keep their test samples vertical.

The Vesta research intern also cut up his fair share of sea cucumbers.

“Since sea cucumbers are bottom feeders, they are good at showing what is in the rocks,” said Pratt, who explained contents of the digestive tract were dissolved in acid to measure the presence of trace metals.

The Cal Poly crew’s piece of the larger research puzzle will be critical in showing the movement and changes in the trace metals released at olivine-enriched beaches.

Sea cucumbers at Papakolea, for example, might have a higher level of trace metals than at Kua Bay or Richardson’s.

“These findings could be a limiting factor in how much olivine is safe to put on a beach,” Nelson explained. “Our canary in a coal mine actually is a sea cucumber on a green-sand beach.” ■

The samples are being tested on the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Science’s inductively coupled plasmaoptical emission spectroscopy instrument that can measure 80 elements from the periodic table using argon plasma.

Professor Chip Appel, who teaches soil and water chemistry, oversees the testing, while research associate Matt Arnold runs the instrument to record any nickel, chromium or cobalt.

Developing the methodology was challenging, according to Arnold, but is now resulting in data that Nelson’s team will analyze.

“This method of carbon capture seems promising because it involves harnessing what is already happening,” Appel said. “We need to explore all these avenues.” ■

“It was special to be at a beach in Hawaii collecting our own samples. Being there gave us a full sense of what was going on as we knew each spot and condition under which a particular sample was collected.”

— Bip Padrnos, Environmental Engineering Student

Cal Poly student Casper Pratt collects olivine from the ocean floor on the Big Island of Hawaii as part of an international team studying carbon sequestration.

Combating Back Pain

Cal Poly team develops innovative spinal tape that monitors unsafe movements and raises posture awareness

by Emily Slater

Two Cal Poly engineering faculty members have teamed up on a research project that is eliciting excitement because it addresses the universal human experience of low back pain.

“Everyone can relate to back pain,” said biomedical engineering lecturer Britta Berg-Johansen, who added that up to 80% of the population will face one of the world’s biggest health problems at some point in their lives.

After years spent studying the human spine, Berg-Johansen believes that increasing awareness about the movements that lead to low back pain could be the key to prevention.

Berg-Johansen has teamed up with structural engineering Assistant Professor Long Wang to create a spinal tape that senses bending and twisting, alerting users through an app when they are displaying bad posture or holding a position for too long.

“We want to use sensors to prevent injury on the spine,” Wang explained.

The long strip of athletic tape is attached vertically to the center of the lower back, with tiny sensors made from flexible, sensitive materials affixed to the tape to measure movement.

The pair is pursuing a patent for their spinal tape with the dream of bringing the invention to the commercial market.

“We are in a back pain epidemic,” said Berg-Johansen, “and this product could help a lot of people.”

Photo by Dennis Steers

Biomedical engineering lecturer Britta Berg-Johansen, left, and structural engineering assistant professor Long Wang and are working on a project involving a special tape that senses stress on the spine.

Joining Forces

Wang and Berg-Johansen met soon after they began teaching at Cal Poly in 2020 and formed a dynamic partnership.

“I knew we would make a good team,” Berg-Johansen said.

With her background in spine biomechanics, Wang’s knowledge of nanomaterials and a shared interest in wearable technology, the pair held a brainstorming session and landed on the idea for spinal tape.

They set out to create a flexible device for the lower back to contrast the rigid apparatuses on the market that attach to the upper back to aid those working in deskbased jobs.

Osos, joined the team in the summer of 2022 after Berg-Johansen enlisted him to code and design a new circuit board for the device.

Overcoming Barriers

While interviewing dozens of farmworkers and farm managers, Britta Berg-Johansen and Long Wang learned that undocumented workers may be afraid to report back pain or injury for fear of immigration action or being taken off the workforce.

One idea that came out of the CSU Innovation Corps program was to market spinal tape to the fitness and wearable technology industries on the premise that a device would be donated to a farmworker for every purchase made.

They could also collaborate with public health agencies, BergJohansen said.

The professors were selected to join the California State University Innovation Corps and received guidance in commercializing a medical device, completing a patent search to find out if an invention is new or novel compared to existing technology and identifying consumers.

Initially, they pinpointed farmworkers as their target market but after conducting over 50 interviews decided their device could not only help those at high risk for back injury but anyone interested in preventive health care and wearable motion tracking.

“This product will be generalizable for everyone,” Berg-Johansen said.

Engineering the Device

A biomedical engineering senior project team developed the first prototype during the 2021-22 academic year. The following year, a master’s student worked on the second prototype, connecting circuitry and creating a system to collect data.

Last summer, a $30,000 grant from the Department of Health and Human Services funded a group of biomedical, computer, materials and mechanical engineering students to create the third prototype.

“I love working on such an interdisciplinary team,” Berg-Johansen said. “It’s a really fun project and there’s never a dull day.”

Computer engineering student Aaron Rosen, of nearby Los

Earlier prototypes were bulky and couldn’t easily be worn, so Rosen used much smaller and thinner electronics that can be attached to the spine tape or a belt clip.

The challenge is to get consistent readings from the device, Rosen said.

Progress is measured in the Human Motion Biomechanics Laboratory where participants wear the spinal tape while twisting, bending and stretching. The cameras that line the room record motion data, which is compared to the data from the tape sensors for accuracy.

“The goal is that data from the cameras and the tape line up,” said Berg-Johansen who added they haven’t achieved sufficient alignment yet.

Both Rosen and Berg-Johansen hope to see a high level of accuracy by the end of the academic year, when Rosen will graduate.

As Rosen continues to adjust coding for the sensors, Wang is experimenting with different formulations of nanomaterials in his lab to increase the sensitivity of the spinal tape.

“The sensor’s response still needs to be improved,” Wang said. “The progress is promising but we still need to improve the design.”

Next Steps

Team members are applying the improvements made on the third prototype to a fourth model, which could be the final iteration.

“We are getting closer on the technology side,” said Berg-Johansen, who hopes to secure more grant funding and an industrial partnership.

They will design the aesthetics of the device, decide if users will need a tool to attach the tape on their own and develop the app. They also must consider how to detach the electrical component for reuse upon disposal of the tape after a day of wearing.

“I speculate a lot of people would use this,” said Rosen, who sees himself wearing the device while gardening to ensure good posture. ■

“We are in a back pain epidemic and this product could help a lot of people.”

— Britta Berg-Johansen, Biomedical Engineering Lecturer

Mission, Vision & Values

by Emily Slater

The College of Engineering revealed a new mission and bold vision for the future in December 2022 that honors Cal Poly’s lineage of greatness and propels the college into the future on the strength of its core values and key priorities.

A 15-member committee of students, faculty and staff members across the college met from January to June 2022 then collected the input and gathered for a series of Zoom meetings where they identified the foundational elements to serve as the cornerstone of the five-year plan. A draft version was presented to the college in September and final version in December 2022.

“We had one foot in the past while we looked forward to the

future,” said Hans Mayer, a mechanical engineering assistant professor who served on the committee. “We wanted to honor what Cal Poly has always been while moving forward to make our college even stronger.”

College of Engineering Dean Amy S. Fleischer believes a shared mission and vision gives the college a road map as it provides unique, inclusive, educational and applied research experiences for a rapidly diversifying student population.

“We are empowering our engineering students to change the world through their innovative and sustainable solutions to challenges,” Fleischer said. “Conveying such an important mission unites us all in our pursuit of excellence.”

Photos by Dennis Steers

Strategic plan will serve as road map for next five years

“We are empowering our engineering students to change the world through their innovative and sustainable solutions to challenges.”

— Amy S. Fleischer College of Engineering Dean

Materials engineering student Nick Radvocich, a lab tech in the Cal Poly Gene Haas Advanced Machining Lab, works on programming the new Haas 500SS machining device.

The process of drafting a strategic plan started with surveying students, faculty and staff members about the college’s mission and values, vision for the future, areas of distinction and learning opportunities.

Over 1,400 students and 129 faculty and staff members responded to the strategic plan survey or participated in focus groups, while another 80 college leaders attended a kickoff workshop.

“The number of student responses, in particular, tell me that people care about what we’re doing,” said Chris Lupo, committee member and computer science and software engineering chair. “It was refreshing to see how many students wanted their voices to be heard.”

After the input collection phase, the Strategic Planning Committee began meeting every two or three weeks starting in January 2022 to craft the foundational elements of the plan under the guidance of consulting firm Blue Beyond.

The first step, Lupo said, was looking for trends in the data so members could categorize the responses that would shape the mission. “We wanted to hit the key points,” he explained.

The committee included college leaders who shared a range of opinions about the path forward and the meaning of success during discussions held in breakout rooms and as a larger group.

Paige Ross, the president of the Cal Poly chapter of the Society of Women Engineers, represented the student perspective she called critical to any strategic planning.

“We are the ones who will be going into the industry and implementing these ideas,” said Ross, who is in her fifth year of a blended master’s program for mechanical engineering.

The Simi Valley, California, resident believes that engineers coming out of Cal Poly will have a vital role in developing sustainable solutions to real-world problems through designs that impact their communities.

“As a college, we have to center our identity and reflect how

Computer Science Professor Zachary Peterson instructs a class in cybersecurity in the Cal Poly-Northrop Grumman Cyber Lab.

more diverse perspectives and identities can lead to better solutions for all communities,” Ross said. “If we don’t change, we’ll be left behind integrating into the greater community.”

The plan’s guiding principles should be a part of classroom discussions that extend to school projects and out into the field, she said.

Biomedical engineering Professor Kristen O’Halloran Cardinal said the committee’s work to determine where the college’s compass should point was challenging but invigorating.

She joined the committee to learn about the strategic planning process but also to speak for her department and the priorities of its students.

“There are so many unique perspectives between staff, faculty and students, but there are also so many commonalities in why people love Cal Poly,” she said. “At the end of the day, we all have the same goals.”

With a mission in place, the Strategic Planning Committee worked to formulate a vision and identify key priorities and specific goals to make that vision a reality.

Lupo said that while the college had a prior mission statement in place, there was not a clearly defined vision.

The survey data provided the key to creating the vision, said Mayer, who noted students, staff and faculty all aligned on the importance of Cal Poly’s Learn by Doing approach, affordable education and academic reputation.

There was also a stated desire to raise the national prominence of the college’s hands-on education and its rapidly diversifying student population, internal and external collaborations, and commitment to the growth of students, faculty and staff.

“We all have a similar purpose, which brings up morale and brings clarity about what our purpose is in any setting, whether big or small,” said Katie Jennings, committee member and retention specialist with Engineering Student Services.

Articulating a vision also guided the committee in identifying the core values of the strategic plan: collaboration, growth, excellence, and a diverse, equitable, just and inclusive community.

“We need collaboration and growth along with diversity, equity and inclusion to make excellent people,” Jennings said. “They all tie into each other.”

Tangible ways to achieve the vision could include increasing support for multicultural programs, promoting professional development and dedicating class time to open dialogue through which students can learn more about themselves and each other, Jennings said.

Civil engineering lecturer Momadou Konate, center, participates in a discussion with colleagues at a JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) community lunch in October.

What’s Next?

The full 2022-2027 College of Engineering

Strategic plan which includes not only the mission, vision and values but also four strategic priorities, two goals for each priority, metrics and actions can be found on the college website.

“This is the starting point,” said Professor Kristen O’Halloran Cardinal. “All the actions we take now will stem from the mission and vision.”

The next steps, according to college Dean Amy S. Fleischer, are to set yearly actions and transparently track and communicate progress on strategic priorities and vision.

Making programs, such as computing, more accessible to constituencies and creating more collaborative curriculum are other concrete steps, according to Lupo.

Elevating the work and missions of campus clubs, including the Society of Women Engineers chapter, is another step forward, Ross said.

Community building is critical too after a pandemic that isolated so many, said Cardinal, who added that college support for the development of health-care technology, for example, can lead to expanded outreach to marginalized groups.

“Learn by Doing is in our DNA, but now we have a mission, vision, values and priorities that honor that,” Mayer said. ■

Learn by Doing tradition: Mechanical engineering student Zoe Porter welds on the frame of the 2023 Cal Poly Rose Parade float “Road to Reclamation.” The entry received the Extraordinaire Award at the 134th Rose Parade® held Jan. 2.

Computer engineering student Thomas Choboter brings his twin passions of electronics and music together during performances at the San Luis Obispo Farmers Market.

Engineering a Sonic Toolbox

Computer engineering student and street musical artist Thomas Choboter builds his own audio equipment to enhance his performances

With a series of taps of his left foot on buttons affixed to the lid of an old aluminum tin made for salted caramels, Thomas Choboter strums his guitar and begins to harmonize to the beat of electronic drums and a loop of background vocals he had just recorded.

The Cal Poly computer engineering student is a virtual oneman band, producing a rich, layered sound as he runs through a set list of familiar cover songs that has people at the San Luis Obispo Farmers Market singing along and tossing dollars into his open guitar case.

Choboter, who turned his hobby of playing music into a potential career option five years ago as a high school student, has found a way to merge his twin passions of engineering and music. He is proud of the MIDI controller he built with that caramel box and an Arduino — an open-source electronic prototyping platform that enables users to create interactive electronic devices — that helped bring the two together.

“In my acoustic guitar and live looping setup, I have two devices I use with my feet — one is the Boss RC-500 loop station and the other is my own MIDI controller that I built,” he said. “I tap a pedal on the Boss loop station once to start recording and then again to instantly play the recording back. But the loop station has several features that are not easily accessible

Revealing the secrets to his unique sound, Choboter opens up his home-built “Salted Caramel Box,” a MIDI controller, which enhances the options on his loop station.

Story and photos by Dennis Steers

in a live setting, such as its programmable drum machine, or the ability to change the tempo of the loop. That’s where the caramel box comes in.”

Choboter said the six pedals on his MIDI controller multiplies the options in the loop station and easily doubles his enjoyment of performing.

“Without the box, my performance would be limited to relatively simple loops,” he said. “Thanks to the use of Arduinos and MIDI-compatible devices, I’m able to have a much more versatile sonic toolbox that I can specifically tailor to create my own sound.”

Choboter’s sound, a fusion of folk, rock, pop and other genres, developed growing up in San Luis Obispo and Templeton, California, and as the son of Cal Poly mathematics Professor Paul Choboter, he said he’s always had an analytical approach to education and music

“I enjoy learning about science and engineering because it gives me more control of my surroundings,” he said. “If I can understand why a certain process takes place, then I can generalize that knowledge and apply it to other aspects of life. One of the reasons I love music so much is that there is always more to learn and new ways to generalize or understand musical structures.”

Choboter clearly remembers the day his caramel box amplified his music to a new level.

“It’s difficult for me to express the satisfaction that I get starting from a tiny idea to producing a physical object that works exactly how I want it to work,” he said. “It’s a deep sense

Intensity and focus show in all facets of Choboter’s live performances.

Choboter adjusts the volume on his loop station with his fingers before playing the equipment with his feet.

of fulfillment that few things can give me. The fact that I know exactly how my device works, down to the wiring, means I have complete control over it and can use it to its full potential.”

While the potential of a musical career is alluring, Choboter remains balanced with respect to the relationship between art and science, and realistic when it comes to his future.

“There is no path toward a career playing music like there is a path toward a career in technology, and I have found that my skills in engineering and science give me a more guaranteed way to make a decent living,” he said. “All I know is that I have no plans to stop performing music, and all I focus on day to day is the next step I can take to make my performances better.” ■

“It’s difficult for me to express the satisfaction that I get starting from a tiny idea to producing a physical object that works exactly how I want it to work. The fact that I know exactly how my device works, down to the wiring, means I have complete control over it and can use it to its full potential.”

— Thomas Choboter Computer Engineering student

A Hand for Maggie

EMPOWER team to design prosthetic device for engineering peer

by Emily Slater

Maggie Collier holds a mold of her left hand, her abnormally short middle and ring fingers and index and pinky fingers that cannot bend. Her hand was stunted by a syndrome that restricts blood flow in the womb.

Photos by Dennis Steers

Most of life’s defining moments happen unexpectedly as was the case for Maggie Collier in her biomedical engineering class on a spring day in 2022.

A materials specialist was visiting lecturer David Laiho’s introductory class to discuss how molding and casting play a critical role in engineering, including the field of prosthetics, and Collier was captivated.

She wanted to learn how to craft prosthetic devices that would help others but didn’t know she was on the verge of discovering they could also help her.

Brooke Wheeler — the specialist from Reynolds Advanced Materials whose son received a liberal arts degree from Cal Poly in 2013 — concluded his demonstration by offering each student the chance to make a mold of their thumb.

Collier, however, had a different idea.

She asked Wheeler on a whim if she could make a mold of her left hand to capture the likeness of her abnormally short fingers that were stunted by a syndrome that restricts blood flow in the womb.

Wheeler’s response stunned Collier.

“You could use this to make something to help with your hand,” he said, explaining that the mold could be a first step toward creating a device that would give Collier a level of mobility and freedom she’s never had.

“Really?” she asked in disbelief. “No way!”

Many molds later, a team within the student-run EMPOWER is on a yearlong mission to engineer a prosthetic device for their peer who has encouraged countless others to embrace their differences.

“My parents taught me to love that this is what my hand is. I think it’s the coolest thing ever.”

— Maggie Collier Biomedical Engineering student

EMPOWER team members create a mold of Maggie Collier’s hand in the TECHE lab. From left are Collier, Rachel Rowe and Ruth Abigail Rodriguez.

MORE ON AMNIOTIC BAND SYNDROME

Amniotic band syndrome can occur when the inner layer of the placenta, called the amnion, is damaged during pregnancy. If this happens, thins strands of tissue (amniotic bands) form inside the amnion. The fiberlike bands tangle around the developing fetus, restricting blood flow, thus affecting the growth of certain body parts and leading to the possibility of congenital deformities.

‘Awesome, Not Weird’

Collier, who is in her third year at Cal Poly, was born with a hand deformed by amniotic band syndrome in which loose bands of tissue in the uterus wrap around a developing fetus, preventing blood from reaching the body parts that are entangled.

Two middle fingers on her left hand are shortened, missing the end portions, while her pointer and pinky fingers can’t bend.

Collier’s parents met with a team of doctors at Shriners Hospitals for Children who presented options that included surgery to lengthen her middle fingers, but the procedure would not have increased mobility, so they took a different approach.

“My parents taught me to love that this is what my hand is,” said Collier who would tell her classmates and friends in Santa Clarita that God made her special. “I think it’s the coolest thing ever.”

From a young age, Collier not only celebrated her own disability but others with disabilities.

When Collier discovered one of her kindergarten classmates didn’t have legs, she approached him in line and said, “Your legs are like my fingers!”

“I didn’t look at him like ‘that’s so sad.’ I thought it was something that made him unique and would give him the chance to find his own way of doing things,” she said.

Collier later shared the same sentiment with a girl in her friend’s

swim class who was missing an arm and a girl in her former teacher’s class with a hand deformity.

As she promoted diversity, Collier destigmatized disabilities.

When she started cheerleading, a girl on Collier’s squad refused to hold hands with her, so Collier chased after her to show there was nothing to fear — a story that would become a favorite of her grandmother and illustrate Collier’s mettle.

Collier also joked about what led to her shortened fingers: “Don’t run with scissors!” she advised her classmates, telling others she’d had an accident with a cheese grater.

In lightening the mood, Collier found she could set the tone of conversations.

“If I could tell someone was going to express sympathy, I would say, ‘No, I think it’s fun. Look how cute they are!’”

Along the way, her friends began echoing her message of inclusion.

When a third-grade classmate showed Collier a picture of a three-fingered alien that he said resembled her, her friend responded, ‘Why are you saying that? Her fingers are awesome, not weird!”

By fifth grade, another of her friends started walking around school holding two fingers down so she could experience what Collier lived with.

Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine

Maggie Collier holds a mold of her left hand in the TECHE lab. An EMPOWER team is working to create a prosthetic device that will give Collier greater mobility.

“That was the first time I saw someone loving something about me as much as I did,” Collier said. “I thought, ‘Oh, you want to be like me?’ That’s so cool.’ ”

‘Let’s Do This’

While Collier exudes positivity, her journey has not been without its daily challenges.

Collier can’t make a fist, for example, due to the combination of two abnormally short fingers and two other fingers that can’t bend on her left hand. She can’t grip in a certain position or lift heavy objects.

Before completing certain tasks, Collier said she devises a game plan in her head. When she gathered with family over Thanksgiving break, her cousin asked Collier and her sister if they could swing him between them. To meet his request, Collier realized she would have to position herself on his left side so she could use her right hand to grip his left.

Collier has spent her life improvising — skipping rungs to navigate the monkey bars at school and finding a way to hoist cheerleaders on her stunt team — but she can’t perform certain tasks, like carrying in groceries or lifting a weight bar at the gym.

“I’ve always found another way, but I can’t with lifting things. It feels like it should be so simple, but it’s not and that’s frustrating,” she said.

As she navigated through the biomedical engineering program at Cal Poly, Collier attended that pivotal class in the spring of 2021 when she completed the mold of her fingers she later gifted to her mom.

After Wheeler’s materials presentation, he left extra SmoothOn mold-making material for Laiho and Collier who together

Collier, middle left, is part of the base for the Saugus High School varsity competition team as they practice a pyramid in 2019 during a camp at the University of Kentucky.

embarked on an exploratory mission to determine the feasibility of creating a prosthetic device that could aid Collier with lifting and gripping.

“I didn’t know prosthetics was an option until I was older,” said Collier, who now is contemplating a career in prosthetics rehabilitation.

The professor and student experimented with molding and Laiho told Collier she could be a candidate for EMPOWER, or Endeavors to Move People Onward With Engineered Results.

The student-run organization selects a handful of projects each year to improve the quality of life of a veteran, community member or group of people with a disability through the creation of medical devices. Projects have ranged from building prosthetic arms and legs to developing motorized devices and health-related apps.

Laiho reached out to club President Yael Livneh, a fourth-year biomedical engineering student from Palo Alto, California, and the trio met to discuss the possibility of Collier as a candidate.

“I thought I would be pitching the project to her,” said Collier, who tried to tamp down her excitement before the meeting. “I was still in disbelief this could be happening.”

Livneh remembers the moment well.

“When Maggie walked in and told me her story, I immediately said, ‘Yes! Let’s do this.’” ■

Collier holds a championship plaque during the second Southern Section CIF cheerleading competition in January 2020. Competitive cheer was recognized as a CIF sport for the 2017-18 school year.

Maggie Collier, just before her third birthday.

Engineering Skier Aims to Change the Industry

General engineering student and ski club president building eco-friendly skis for a new business launch

by Emily Slater

General engineering student Matthew Morin has loved skiing and nature for as long as he can remember. He learned to ski as a 3-year-old in Seattle, where he spent his childhood connecting with extended family on mountain vacations and his teen years hitting the slopes with friends for night skiing every Friday.

Morin also grew up in a household that was devoted to caring for the environment he so loved.

It seemed only natural, then, that during his senior year at a STEM-based high school, he handcrafted his own skis in his garage using sustainable materials.

He has yet to test the pair, but they serve as an important symbol.

“Those skis now hang on my wall as a reminder of where I started and where I’m heading,” said Morin, president of Central Pacific Ski Club, one of the largest student clubs at Cal Poly.

His destination? A ski company born out of his senior project at Cal Poly rooted in sustainability and sound engineering.

‘Nothing More Inspiring’

Morin’s journey through Cal Poly has taken twists and turns

an emphasis on composite design and entrepreneurship.

He started as a mechanical engineering major to gain skills for a future he hoped would include a ski-related pursuit, but he struggled with applying the course material. Distance learning due to COVID compounded the situation.

“I was losing my drive,” Morin said.

At the same time, his passion for skiing was only growing.

His first day in the dorms, Morin joined the ski club — “I didn’t know anyone, and I knew I needed to make friends” — and soon rose through the ranks, serving as secretary, then vice president and president.

Through the club, he has skied across California, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and in Montana for the group’s latest adventure.

Euphoria is the feeling Morin attaches to flying down the mountain as he connects to nature and finds freedom: “There’s nothing like skiing a good line,” he said.

Morin ultimately decided to change direction his junior year, shifting to general engineering so he could build a foundation to launch a company specializing in sustainably made skis.

Matthew Morin celebrates New Year’s Day at his home ski resort, Crystal Mountain near Mt. Rainier, in Washington.

Photos courtesy of Matthew Morin

“Matthew’s passion for this topic is contagious,” said Liz Thompson, director of the General Engineering Program. “When you hear about his love of skiing combined with wanting to contribute to a more sustainable future, there is nothing more inspiring,”

Thompson has watched many students like Morin find a topic that aligns with their passion which gives rise to a hunger for learning and drive to generate the kind of solutions the planet needs.

“This is the best example of how engineering education should be — solving the planet’s problems while producing knowledge and creating new paths for individuals,” she said.

The Perfect Interdisciplinary Project

The move to general engineering gave Morin the runway to immediately begin work on his senior project — perfecting a set of sustainably made skis.

He is taking the lessons learned from building his first pair in high school along with the higher education he has received in materials, manufacturing and electrical engineering to create a new prototype that targets each part of the ski.

Morin’s goal is to reduce the overall ecological footprint of the process.

“Skiers should care about the environment,” he said. “Climate change is affecting our winters, and we need to do something about it.”

Materials engineering Assistant Professor Joel Galos is advising Morin on his project, offering technical guidance on how to select the best materials and processes.

Standard skis include a wood core with composite reinforcement and materials such as fiber glass, carbon and epoxy. Sustainable skis could include wood types that take less energy to process and plant-based fibers and bio-resins that are more eco-friendly.

“Matthew’s project has the potential to create an exciting new product that could significantly reduce the environmental impact of recreational skis,” Galos said. “I am encouraging Matthew to aim high and to reach those heights through a sound understanding of engineering fundamentals.”

Initially, Morin thought sustainable skis might mean sacrificing performance, but now he believes he may be able to improve stiffness and flex pattern based on his choice of materials.

Morin’s next steps include fabricating prototypes and testing them on the slopes.

Once he turns his prototype into a product, Morin intends to launch his own product — and company — using principles he learned through business courses he integrated into his major.

His target market is first-time ski buyers in their teens and 20s so he can build brand loyalty early.

While some companies have started exploring sustainable practices, Morin still aims to be on the cutting edge by starting his venture as soon as he graduates in the fall.

“If I wait, I won’t be on the forefront, so I’m going to give it all I’ve got,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, it will look good on a résumé but if it does, I get to change the industry.” ■

Matthew Morin works on his first pair of sustainable skis during his senior year of high school in Washington. He would later hang those skis on his wall to remember where he started and where he’s heading.

“Matthew’s passion for this topic is contagious. When you hear about his love of skiing combined with wanting to contribute to a more sustainable future, there is nothing more inspiring.”

— Liz Thompson General Engineering Program director

ALUMNI: Anthony Galyer and Nick Weiser

Time

Two Cal Poly grads help astronomers explore the mysteries of space with their work on the James Webb telescope

by

When the long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope prepared to launch from French Guiana on Christmas morning, 2021, Anthony Galyer sat in a conference room at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, watching his colleagues through glass windows in the nearby control center. Meanwhile, in an apartment a few miles away, Nick Weiser monitored data on telemetry pages with another Webb project teammate.

Weiser and Galyer were between shifts that morning, but the two Cal Poly graduates eagerly watched the livestream of the dramatic moment they helped make possible.

“The minute the launch controllers announced ‘Décollage!’ — French for liftoff — we were nervously jumping and high-fiving,” said Weiser, who worked on the project as part of a Ball Aerospace team.

Working for NASA, Galyer was slightly anxious for the launch, but he knew he could relax a little — at least until the rocket launch team completed its mission.

“Once they get us into space, then the stress is on us,” Galyer said. “Then we have to do all the hard work making sure the satellite and observatory are fine.”

Because light needs time to travel vast distances, telescopes can act as time

machines exploring deep space. So call it the Great Beyond, the final frontier or a galaxy far, far away, if you will, but some believe the mysteries of the universe — and more — might just be solved with a bigger lens.

Thirty-two years after the acclaimed Hubble Space Telescope provided eyes into deep space, the Webb telescope, which is 100 times more powerful, will be able to visit a time when the earliest stars and galaxies were born. While Hubble could explore “toddler galaxies,” it has been said, Webb can introduce us to “baby galaxies.”

“Getting the pictures of the first light in the galaxy will be awe-inspiring,” Weiser said. “However, as a non-astronomer, I’m also really excited to see some of the results of observing exoplanet atmospheres.”

Both Galyer, (Aerospace Engineering, ‘11) and Weiser (Electrical Engineering, ‘14) previously worked at Northrop Grumman, which has also been involved in the Webb project. Prior to the launch, Galyer served as mission ops rehearsal lead, coordinating the group that would perform rehearsals. For that, computer simulations were used — though, he conceded, that doesn’t replicate the true out-of-this-world experience.

“You can only simulate zero gravity,” he said. “You can only simulate the shaking from

Pat Pemberton | Photos courtesy of Anthony Galyer and Nick Weiser

A masked Nick Weiser poses with the James Webb Telescope. Weiser, a systems test engineer at Ball Aerospace, worked on the avionics box that controls the actuators moving each of the telescope’s 18 mirrors, as well as several of the structural deployment motors that helped the telescope blossom from its folded-up configuration to its current flower-like shape.

JWST Quick facts

• First proposed in 1996, the James Webb Space Telescope went into service on July 12, 2022.

• The telescope’s development process cost $10 billion over 17 years.

• Astronomers using the JWST have confirmed the most distant galaxies ever observed, some forming just 330 million years after the Big Bang.

• On Feb. 14, from its orbit a million miles from Earth, the telescope captured an image of a spiral galaxy that resembles the Milky Way, which is located 1 billion light years away from Earth.

• The primary mission for the JWST will last 5.5 years, but scientists anticipate up to a 20-year lifespan.

• The official JWST website is webb.nasa.gov

the rocket and the coldness of space.”

In the month prior to the launch, the New York Times reported, NASA had a list of 344 things that could have destroyed the mission. And while the teams even rehearsed for anomalies, Galyer said, prelaunch exercises were really more about preparing the team itself.

“The purpose of the exercises is not necessarily to get the team used to all the possible things that could go wrong,” said Galyer, who also served as mission ops manager postlaunch. “It’s getting them used to what they would need to do if something goes wrong.”

The sophisticated $10 billion telescope, featuring 18 mirror segments and a sun shield the size of a tennis court, requires significant specialization. Webb had 50 major deployments with 178 release mechanisms that had to work, Weiser said, making each deployment a cause for stress.

Weiser, a systems test engineer at Ball Aerospace, worked on the avionics box that controls the actuators moving each of the telescope’s mirrors, as well as several of the structural deployment motors that helped the telescope blossom from its folded-up configuration to its current flower-like shape.

“To be able to see the lessons we learned during

ALUMNI: Anthony Galyer and Nick Weiser

ground testing be applied in orbit, resulting in a flawless deployment was a pretty emotional moment for me, personally,” Weiser said.

Both grads said their collaborative projects at Cal Poly helped prepare them for the teamwork needed to work on a project like this. Weiser had extracurricular collaboration as a member of the PolySat club, which creates mini satellites that are launched into space.

That experience involved design and testing satellites, plus orbit operations. And it required working with students from other majors, including software and mechanical engineering.

“The ability to understand each other across those disciplines is almost as important as the discipline-specific knowledge we gain in classes itself,” Weiser said.

Having to coordinate efforts with several specialists when he’s on the console as mission operations manager, Galyer said his role is similar to a band leader: Because all activities on the observatory require his approval, he has to have a broad knowledge and understanding of every function.

“I don’t know how to play the trombone,” he said, “but I know how the trombone should sound and how it works with everything else.” ■

Cal Poly aerospace engineering alumnus Anthony Galyer visits the James Webb Space Telescope during its assembly in Los Angeles. The telescope took nearly 30 years and $10 billion to develop.

Nick Weiser, left, with former CSU Chancellor Timothy White, right, during his visit to the PolySat program lab at Cal Poly.

Photo Courtesy of Dennis Steers | College of Engineering

The first deep space photo snapped by the Webb Telescope shows galaxies that are part of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. It is described as the sharpest infrared image of the early universe ever taken.

Photo courtesy of NASA

‘Find Them Quicker’

by Pat Pemberton

After a 30-inch natural gas pipeline exploded in San Bruno, California, sending huge flames into the air and leveling dozens of homes, search and rescue volunteers quickly assembled, with one primary goal: Find the missing.

“You couldn’t find anything with a naked eye,” said Lisa Harris, a unit leader with the San Mateo County Sheriff’s search and rescue team. “We were using dogs.”

As volunteers, firefighters, police and Red Cross workers descended on the scene in September 2010, Gary Bloom (Computer Science, ’82) was at the command post, coordinating the massive effort. Unlike most search and rescues Bloom has worked, the explosion represented a large-scale disaster. And, like the 2018 Camp Fire he worked, the goals were somber.

“There were no expectations of finding anybody alive,” he said. “We were looking for bodies, unfortunately.”

Bloom, a Cal Poly Honored Alumnus from 2000, is known for his work leading high-tech companies like VERITAS Software, eMeter and MarkLogic. But through the decades, he has also found missing people and saved lives as a member of search and rescue

teams and as a volunteer emergency medical technician.

“Gary never thinks of himself as higher or better than anyone else,” said Brian Spencer, an EMT who has volunteered with Bloom at Rock Medicine (RockMed), providing medical care to Bay Area concertgoers. “From simple emergencies to life and death, there is only a handful of people who I want with me. Gary Bloom is at the top of that list.”

Bloom began volunteering on search and rescue missions the summer before his sophomore year at Cal Poly. He was working as a lifeguard in Pismo Beach when a local search and rescue team assisted Bloom and his partner with a complicated water rescue. During that rescue, a volunteer recruited him.

“I ended up going down to the Pismo sand dunes that night and doing medical calls with them,” he said.

After college, he had a brief stint with IBM in Colorado before moving back to California, where his rise in the corporate world culminated with multiple CEO positions.

After focusing on his career for 15 years, he returned to volunteering in 2007, leading the San Mateo search and rescue

Since his student days at Cal Poly, retired CEO Gary Bloom has helped find the missing as a search and rescue volunteer

Photos courtesy of Gary Bloom

Gary Bloom’s search and rescue work with the San Mateo County Sheriff’s team has him traversing through forests, and like on the following page, poring over maps.

unit for four years and volunteering with RockMed and California Task Force 3, a FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force based in Menlo Park. He also remained active at Cal Poly as a member of the President’s Council of Advisors.

“I believe it made me a better CEO to have distractions and not have 100 percent of my attention on one thing,” Bloom said.

At the same time, his corporate leadership skills helped him guide search and rescue efforts.

“There’s no doubt, whether you’re leading a volunteer group or you’re leading a company, there are a lot of similarities,” he said.

Whether faced with a search and rescue or someone having a medical emergency, Bloom said, the key is to not be paralyzed by indecision.

“That and just being comfortable giving people directives,” he said.

“He’s definitely a leader,” Harris added. “I think that’s his nature.”

Audrey Paulson, an RN and nurse practitioner who has volunteered with Bloom at RockMed, said Bloom’s face is a welcome sight at the Shoreline Amphitheater, where he has helped resuscitate people experiencing a medical crisis.

“He shines above and beyond in times of stress and or disaster,” Paulson said. “Gary delivers his care with competence, care and a confidence that makes all involved feel comfortable.”

While Bloom enjoys the volunteer work, it’s often challenging. San Mateo search and rescue volunteers, for example, have to have many skills, including CPR, first aid certification and the ability to hike through rough terrain.

Bloom and the San Mateo search and rescue team look for missing people not just in their area but around the state. Whenever someone is missing, they’re likely in trouble, making their rescue extremely time sensitive.

“When you really think about it, the responsibility is huge,” Harris said. “We usually find them — thankfully ... We don’t always find them alive.”

Most searches involve missing elderly patients or lost hikers. Search and rescue teams typically begin with around 30 people, but they can grow to several hundred.

Search and rescue requires a lot of logistics, Harris said. “It’s like a game, putting a puzzle together.”

Bloom’s business past, she said, helps him communicate with high-ranking first responders. But he’s also frequently called

upon to interview families of the missing — a task that requires sensitivity and trust.

“When you’re leading a search team, you’re communicating,” Bloom said, “and when you’re doing the interview process, you’re listening.”

For search and rescue missions, there are usually three possible results: Find the subject alive; find them deceased; or never find them.

“The best possible outcome is where you find them, they’re alive, and they walk away from the experience, whether immediately or shortly thereafter,” Bloom said.

Finding subjects deceased is a sad occurrence, he added, but at least those cases provide closure.

“Not finding somebody is the worst possible outcome for a search and rescue team,” Bloom said. “Imagine being the family of someone that’s missing who’s never found. These families have to wake up every morning, going, ‘Where is he?’ ‘Where is she?’”

The explosion in San Bruno showed that volunteers have to be prepared for the unexpected.

“It was out of our element,” Harris said.

The incident, caused by a ruptured natural gas pipeline, began as a rumble, morphed into a flash, then exploded into a roar of fire many assumed was the immediate aftermath of a plane crash. The explosion was one of the worst disasters in the county, causing eight fatalities, major injuries to 58 others and substantial damage to 55 houses.

The tragedy also garnered a massive response that required calmness in the face of chaos.

“These situations can become stressful, with a lot of different opinions,” Harris said. But Bloom has an ability to diffuse tense situations. “He’s good at that because he works in high-pressure situations.”

Having recently retired from the corporate world, Bloom now has more time to focus on his volunteer work. But, he acknowledges, as he gets older, it will be more difficult to perform the more physical aspects. One way he will continue to contribute is by assisting Cal Poly computer science students, who are working with artificial intelligence and automation to make searches more efficient.

“There’s an adrenaline rush even after all these years,” Bloom said. “But at the same time, ultimately what we want to do is improve the outcome of each search operation — find them.”

“When you’re leading a search team, you’re communicating and when you’re doing the interview process, you’re listening.”

—

Gary Bloom Computer Science graduate on the key skills he learned from business

Ride High: Engineering Grads Soar as Fighter Pilots

Air Force aviators discover a Cal Poly connection across the country

by Emily Slater

Robert McInturff dreamed of piloting fighter jets while growing up in a family of aviators who loved to soar.

Early ambitions often give way to more practical pursuits, how ever, so McInturff cultivated an interest in STEM, which led him to Cal Poly and mechanical engineering.

McInturff graduated in 2007 and began designing heating and air conditioning systems, but the blue skies beckoned; hence he became a certified flight instructor who taught students part time.

Still, he longed for more.

“I wanted to fly fighters as a kid, which seemed so unrealistic, but as I considered what really fulfilled me, I thought, ‘Maybe I actually could do this,” said McInturff, who spent hours researching entry points before landing on the Air Force.

When he called a recruiter and relayed his aim, he could sense her cynicism as so many share their dreams of flying, but doubters would not deter him: McInturff not only became a fighter jet pilot but now trains airmen to be combat-ready.

Photos courtesy of Robert McInturff and Rob Cabri

“I had no clue when I was at Cal Poly that I could have this career,” said the major who often has pinch-me moments while working as an F-22 instructor pilot for the 43rd Fighter Squadron in Florida.

McInturff’s engineering education helped him aim high and teach others to do the same, including a student who shared an almost inconceivable connection to his past.

‘Where Am I Right Now?’

McInturff developed his skills flying the $143 million (operation costs are estimated to boost the cost to $228 million over the lifespan of each plane) single-seat, twin engine fighter jet during his first operational assignment in Anchorage, Alaska, after officer training in Montgomery, Alabama, and pilot training in Laughlin, Texas.

“There is nothing out there that can maneuver like an F-22,” he said.

The combination of stealth, speed and lethal long-range weaponry makes the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor the king of airto-air combat and an absolute feat of engineering.

“I am mystified, impressed and proud of American ingenuity,” he said. “People who have gone to Cal Poly and equivalent places are the reason this plane exists.”

A STEM-based education gives pilots a unique understanding of the stealthy superfighter, according to McInturff, who said concepts such as velocity, relative angles and cumulative energy come into play when analyzing a flight path after a training sortie.

McInturff, now based at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, is part of a cadre of instructors that trains 45 students a year.

Upon graduation, students join an elite group of less than 850 to have flown the jet, said McInturff, who added more people had gone to space than flown an F-22 when he finished

“I had no clue when I was at Cal Poly that I could have this career.”

— Robert McInturff Mechanical Engineering, ’07

Cal Poly mechanical engineering graduates and San Jose, California, natives Rob Cabri, left, and Robert McInturff display the colors in front of an F-22.

his pilot program in 2015.

Training is a time-intensive business. For every hour in the air, there can be one to two hours of preparation and three to eight hours spent analyzing each of the pilot’s moves postflight.

McInturff starts with F-22 basics, teaching maneuvers one would see at an airshow — extremely sharp turns, remarkably show speeds and vertical climbs powered by afterburning engines. Pilots then practice aerial combat maneuvers, engaging in classic dogfights where they try to outgun their opponent.

“Our job is to find and make sure that air threats are not a threat,” McInturff said.

Student pilots also develop the traits needed to be a good fighter: intelligence, athleticism and assurance.

“There is an element of Tom Cruise’s character in

“I am mystified, impressed and proud of American ingenuity. People who have gone to Cal Poly and equivalent places are the reason this plane exists.”

— Robert McInturff Mechanical Engineering, ’07

The McInturff family is shown in 2023: From left, Chase, 9, Robert, Joey, 4, Molly and Sammy, 10. Robert met his wife, Molly, in a materials lab at Cal Poly. She has a bachelor’s degree in general engineering and master’s in biomedical engineering.

‘Top Gun’ that you need,” he said. “You don’t want to be arrogant, but you have to be confident.”

Overall, though, Hollywood’s version of a fighter pilot — a brash, egotistical risk-taker — does not hold up, according to McInturff.

“The best of the best are the nicest folks in the unit,” he said, “but you never want to confuse their niceness with weakness.”

Most of McInturff’s students hail from the South or Midwest, and while some have come from the West Coast, none have shared McInturff’s specific California connections.

That is until McInturff was driving into a parking lot at Eglin Air Force Base one dark morning and his headlights lit up a Cal Poly license plate frame affixed to a Jeep.

“I thought, ‘Where am I right now?’” he said, before racing into the study room for new pilots and yelling out, “Who in here drives a gray Jeep?”

‘What Did I Do?’

Growing up, Rob Cabri was always interested in things that moved — cars, planes and everything in between.

Cabri headed to Cal Poly to study mechanical engineering and prepare for a career designing cars, but along the way he shifted his focus to aeronautics.

“I started leaning toward doing something that would combine my interest in flying with my professional interests,” he said.

Cabri interned with Lockheed Martin after his junior year, then joined a senior project team building a boundary layer suction device for Cal Poly’s wind tunnel, learning firsthand about aerodynamics.

Before graduating in 2017, Cabri determined the Air Force would be his best route to piloting, explaining that “I wanted to do something that had a lasting effect, that would challenge me and also allow me to see the world.”

Six months after graduating from Cal Poly, Cabri entered officer training school, then pilot training prior to his F-22 education in Florida.

“The first time I took off in an F-22, I giggled,” Cabri said. “They have a lot of power, and they are a ton of fun to fly.”

The airman was studying with other trainees one dark morning when an instructor pilot burst into their room and asked who drove a gray Jeep.

Cabri, who had been careful to stay under the radar as a new pilot, said his first thought was, “What did I do?” as he claimed the vehicle.

McInturff connected Cabri to the Cal Poly license plate frame and discovered they both had obtained mechanical engineering degrees after growing up in San Jose, California.

“It blew my mind,” McInturff said.

While training together, the pair discussed their similarities and the parallels between engineering and piloting.

“Engineering gives a pilot the ability to look at a problem and make certain calculated decisions,” said Cabri, adding that the

squadron’s hands-on training mirrors Cal Poly’s Learn by Doing philosophy.

Cabri recently finished his training in Florida and was assigned to a combat squadron in Alaska. He will start as a wingman on his way to becoming an instructor pilot, just as McInturff did 10 years ago.

For his part, McInturff will continue to mentor Cabri who he now calls a friend.

“It’s so cool to be able to be able to talk to someone who knows my past,” McInturff said. “We have a unique bond.” ■

“The first time I took off in an F-22, I giggled. They have a lot of power, and they are a ton of fun to fly.”

— Rob Cabri Mechanical Engineering, ’17

Before climbing into the cockpit of a fighter aircraft, 2017 mechanical engineering alumnus Rob Cabri said he was interested in designing cars in his freshman year at Cal Poly.

Positive Technology

After graduation, Jen Overgaag traveled the world — and found her calling

by Pat Pemberton | Photos courtesy of Jen Overgaag

Three years after graduating from Cal Poly, Jen Overgaag quit her job at Cisco Systems and embarked on an international backpacking trip that would change her life.

“I am deeply grateful for my time at Cisco — it truly set me up for success in my career by giving me access to an incredible amount of training and field experience,” she said. “As time went on, I realized that the work I was doing was not having an impact on the people in the world who needed the most help and whom I most wanted to help.”

Years earlier, her journey began in a much different setting — an “extremely small town” in Wyoming, where computer classes were limited to independent study.

“The teacher in this class noticed that I had a gift for technical work and suggested that I look into studying in a computing field,” she said.

She eventually went to Cal Poly, graduating with a computer engineering degree in 2006. After college, she landed a job as a systems engineer at Cisco Systems Inc., a desirable landing for tech grads. But, as Cisco provided her with valuable career tools, she began to reconsider her goals. Unsure what type of career would best position her to help others, she left the country for 18 months, stopping in Western and Eastern Europe and, as her savings began to dwindle, Africa.

“I eventually ended up volunteering with a school in Zambia when someone in my network heard about my career goals and connected me with the principal at the school,” she said. “It was during my time at this school that I realized how I could use my skills and education to make a huge difference in people’s lives.”

While working as a technology volunteer, she noticed that students with internet access were more engaged with their education and had more ambitious education goals.

“This is how I realized the power that technology has to drive development in some areas of the world,” she said. “I came back to the U.S. with a goal to find an organization that was focused on using technology to provide access to information which in turn would help drive development.”

She became a project engineer with Inveneo, a San Francisco-based nonprofit whose mission is to get the tools of information communications technology — such as computers, phones and internet access — to people and organizations in rural and highly underserved communities of the developing world. Two years later, in 2013, she founded BANJO Networks, a consulting business that specializes in rapid communications network deployment in response to disasters and sustainable technology solutions in diverse and challenging environments. In that role, she spent considerable time in Haiti, which suffered a devastating earthquake in 2010, the typhoon-stricken Philippines, and Puerto Rico after 2017’s Hurricane Maria.

After a disaster, Overgaag said, communications are needed for hospitals, municipalities and police; nongovernmental organizations trying to provide relief; and families attempting to connect with loved ones.

As she helped facilitate those communications, reactions to disasters — neighbors helping neighbors get food and water, clearing streets for supply trucks or helping each other find relatives — offered a renewed sense of faith in humanity.

“Aside from the obvious grief, chaos and destruction, the sense of community is what I have noticed stands out the most in the environment following a disaster,” she said. “I am constantly impressed at how people show up for their community.”

Overgaag, who volunteers on the Computer Engineering Department’s Industry Advisory Board, still assists communities through BANJO Networks. And since September 2020, she has worked as a software engineer for Recidiviz, a nonprofit focused on accelerating progress toward a smaller, more fair criminal justice system.

“We use data shared with us from the departments of corrections within our partner states,” she said. “This data allows us to provide open-source tools for real-time monitoring and analysis, standardizing metrics across national, state and local jurisdictions, and create tools that enable outcome-based decision making.”

A dancer and “creative reuse” artist, Overgaag also promotes creative thinking with tech. While disinformation campaigns have cast a shadow on social media platforms, Overgaag thinks tech’s overall impact on society is positive — whether it’s addressing wider challenges, such as climate change, or smaller ones that impact a handful of people.

“Change can be messy, and we are in the middle of a digital revolution,” she said. “I have very high hopes that on the other side of this revolution, we will be a more just, equitable, healthy and sustainable society.” ■

Climbing towers in rural areas was part of the job for computer engineering alumna Jen Overgaag as a project engineer from 2011 to 2013 at Inveneo. The company brings information and communication technology to underserved communities around the world.

Bridging the Engineering Gender Gap

Couple aims to help women in engineering graduate

by Taylor Villanueva | Photo courtesy of Mike and Keri Hammons

Cal Poly alumnus Mike Hammons and his wife, Keri, wanted to do something that would benefit the future of engineering, so they thought systematically about how to help while making the biggest impact.

“We aren’t producing enough engineers,” Mike said. “How do we improve that? There’s a whole part around STEM education getting people interested in engineering and STEM at earlier stages — middle school, high school. Then, once you get people into engineering, how do you ensure you have higher graduation rates?”

Mike explained that he didn’t want the cost of higher education tuition to be an obstacle for future engineers, so he and Keri created an endowment.

“The last thing I want to see is a student not making it through because they couldn’t afford to,” Mike said. “We can directly address those who get here and potentially run into financial issues.”

Mike is a managing partner at an investment management firm and has previously served as the CEO of various companies. He also lectures within Cal Poly’s Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department (IME). Keri has a background in psychology and social work. When deciding on which group of individuals to help, Mike and Keri reflected on their experiences in the workforce.

“My experience was always that the best product or solution I got out of a team was from a team that was diverse,” Mike said. “If you could get a team to work well together, the fact that people were bringing different ideas meant the product ended up being much better.”

The couple agreed that women brought a different perspective that was vital to a creative engineering environment.

“If you look at the data and look at the number of women, more women bring additional diversity and viewpoints you wouldn’t normally see,” Mike said.

“Research shows that women in management positions are strong and bring something to the table, specifically innovation and strategy,” Keri said. “Having an engineering degree makes a woman in management an asset to the future of tech.”

That’s why they decided to support the Cal Poly chapter of the

Society of Women Engineers, or SWE, an organization that has members of all gender identities.

SWE strives to provide a voice for members that encourages them to achieve their full potential as engineers and as leaders.

“As a woman within the College of Engineering, it’s difficult to feel you are welcome there and it is a space for you to succeed,” said SWE chapter President Paige Ross.

“The Society of Women Engineers strives to create that space inside the classroom, out in the community and beyond to ensure those who are underrepresented have the resources and support to thrive.”

In addition to Mike’s time lecturing within IME, he has also mentored SWE students. His first-hand experience working with the students only furthered the couple’s decision to create an endowment to support students in SWE.

The Hammons’ endowment will provide scholarships for upperlevel students.

“There’s a cascading effect here,” Mike explained. “We aren’t trying to entice people to attend Cal Poly with this scholarship. We structured this scholarship around later-staged students to help women graduate at a higher rate. The award creates recognition for this person who promotes women in engineering. That, in turn, builds confidence.”

Mike reflects on how few women were in his engineering classes when he attended Cal Poly and how he hopes the scholarships will help change that.

“If we get enough confident women engineers out there in the workplace showing success, that also potentially has an effect on the recruitment issue for middle and high school female students to be interested in STEM and engineering,” Mike said. “The biggest marketing and advertising for women to get interested in STEM early on is because they see successful women out there doing it.” ■

Mike and Keri Hammons have established a scholarship that will help women engineering majors to graduate from Cal Poly at a higher rate.

Working to Make Education Affordable

Industrial engineering alumna establishes endowment to help lower tuition costs for students in need

by Charlotte Tallman

Dawn Posey dreamed of a career in aerospace engineering when she transferred from Palomar Community College in San Marcos, California, to Cal Poly in 1987. Instead, she switched to a career in industrial engineering which took her all over the world and led to a 26-year career at Honeywell International Inc., one of the world’s largest industrial conglomerates.

In Posey’s first year, she took a foundry class as part of the aerospace curriculum and became intrigued by industrial engineering. “It really started me thinking about switching majors. An unexpected benefit of the switch, I met more women who were studying to become engineers which made my desire to be an engineer not seem so crazy.”

Posey graduated in 1989 with an industrial engineering degree and worked for General Dynamics Corp. as an industrial engineer on the MD-11, a wide-body jet airliner. After a year on the job, Posey returned to Cal Poly’s newly formed engineering management program and earned a master’s degree in engineering management and business administration. Posey was hired into Honeywell’s Professional Excellence Program.

At the end of an almost three-decade-long career, Posey led a global cross-functional customer experience team for Honeywell’s Safety and Productivity Solutions business.

“The whole Learn by Doing focus was way more valuable than I originally thought. It wasn’t just a saying; it was a way of life,” Posey said. With that focus in mind, Posey accepted a two-week process mapping role in Brussels, Belgium, which turned into a multiyear assignment where Posey established a greenfield customer care

center and deployed field service technology. “My Cal Poly Learn by Doing experience allowed me to say yes, confidently, to these opportunities.”

Posey, who often gave $100 here and there to Cal Poly, realized she wanted to do more after seeing the experience of two nieces who failed to get funding for their educations. She created the Posey Family Scholarship, a $56,000 endowment to support women in industrial and manufacturing engineering. “I realized it wasn’t as affordable to pay for tuition as it was when I went to school. I want to help lower some of the financial barriers students face, especially those who find it hard to qualify for traditional academic and financial scholarships,” she said. “Now, I always encourage others who talk about giving back, not to wait as long as I did to give. The sooner you start, the longer it will have to build up, and the sooner it will start having an impact.” ■

“The whole Learn by Doing focus was way more valuable than I originally thought. It wasn’t just a saying; it was a way of life.”

— Dawn Posey Industrial Engineering, ’89, MBA, Engineering Management, ‘92

Photo courtesy of Dawn Posey

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Second Annual Art of Engineering

Naomi Nicole Donato (software engineering) won the Platinum Award for “Through My Eyes: Connecting the Spectrum of Light.” The piece depicts a close-up sketch of a human eye, with the pupil constructed from a circular Sankey graph demonstrating the overlap between engineering departments.

Learn more about the Art of Engineering and other awardees through the QR code below.