CLASS OF 2021
2021 REDEFINING
EN·GI·NEER
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EN·GI·NEER /,enje’nir / noun
Traditional Definition A person whose job is to design or build machines, engines, or electrical equipment, or things such as roads, railroads, or bridges.
Tandon Definition A person who expands the traditional definition with unconventional approaches to solving problems in ways that will make a better world.
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2021 2021 CLASS OF
REDEFINING EN·GI·NEER
OF
EFINING EN·GI·NEER
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The Class of 2021 is graduating with new ideas about how to respond to global challenges, new resilience and agility in how they work together to create solutions, and new appreciation for just how much they can accomplish when they’ve had the benefit of an engineering-based education and are passionate about an idea. The old dictionary definitions of engineer don’t even scratch the surface of what they’re capable of.
It’s clear that this generation is, quite literally, redefining engineering, so we asked some of Tandon’s graduating students to explain how.
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HOW WILL THE UP-AND-COMING GENERATION REIMAGINE SOCIETY FOR THE BETTER? Our graduates are building a better world by advancing the vital fields — and intersections between them — that will enable us to engineer creative and smart, connected and secure, sustainable and healthy urban communities.
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EN
NGINEERING OPPORTUNITY
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WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN ENGINEER? “ We’re essentially sculptors and artists; our creations are shaping what the world looks like.”
DATA & AI I WIRELESS ENGINEERING OPPORTUNITY
SHIVAM JINDAL B.S. in Computer Science
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? To me, being an engineer means being a problem solver — taking a problem, breaking it down, and building solutions that can really help people. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape?
“ The common goal is to make whatever you’re working on more efficient, smarter and more scalable. ”
There’s a stereotype that computer scientists are math geeks who sit at a desk all day coding. That’s a total misconception. We are certainly not confined to our desks and are fully engaged in the world. Take a problem like the need to get medical supplies to a remote area in a developing country. It’s a computer scientist who’s going to create the software that programs the drone capable of that. I’ve accepted a job offer from Microsoft, and I hope to one day go into education policy and help more people access STEM learning. We should all be using our talents to make society better. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? I had many great experiences here that helped shape my goals. For example, I served as the VP of the undergraduate student council, and that gave me a broader perspective on student needs and challenges, which is directly related to the work in the education realm I want to do. I also launched an initiative called build4good, which aims to connect students with technology skills to nonprofits that need their help. It’s been a great success thus far, so every day I get to see the difference engineers and technologists can make in the world.
ENGINEERING OPPORTUNITY SUSTAINABILITY I FOUNDATIONAL
SUQI WU B.S. in Mechanical Engineering
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? We break problems down into component parts and remove the roadblocks to solving them.
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“ Engineers push the boundaries to make things better... even if it’s not broken, fix it.” “ To me, being an engineer means being a problem solver — taking a problem breaking it down and building solutions that can really help people.”
“ We break problems down into component parts and remove the roadblocks to solving them. ”
How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? Mechanical engineers are needed in so many different fields; that’s always been the case, but as new products and services are introduced, the need for our skills increases. For example, I’m completing a co-op at Procter & Gamble, and after graduation, I’ll be going to California to work as a manufacturing design engineer at Apple. That means when a new product is first conceived of, I’ll work with a team to figure out how we can make it. How can we do that in a sustainable, scalable way? Will it be accessible to the differently abled and affordable? How can we ensure the quality? How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? I’ve had more formative experiences at Tandon than I could possibly list. I took part in a Design for America project and got to work abroad in Japan, and I was on a team that competed in the Forbes
Idea Incubator. I’m a first-generation college student, so I had to work, and I was lucky enough to get a job as a TA in the MakerSpace, which showed me how satisfying it is to mentor others in STEM. I also served as a TA in ENG 1001 because I realized that the courses I took freshman year taught me to think like an engineer and introduced me to how expansive the discipline is. I had wonderful role models like Victoria Bill and Anne-Laure Fayard, who showed me what women in STEM can accomplish, and professors like Nicholas DiZinno and Joseph Borowiec, who can make even the most difficult topic meaningful. I should also mention my internship at Boeing, because learning how airplanes are built is obviously a very cool thing. (My actual duties involved supporting the skin damage prevention and repair efforts for the Boeing 777, and I led a team of Production Engineers in identifying mitigation plans for areas with high defect occurrence.)
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Another formative experience has been working as a MakerSpace teaching assistant; in that capacity, I’ve guided more than a thousand students, faculty, and visitors through technical for 3D printers, laser cutters, and other equipment. I know now that I have the ability to break down a process into clear steps and convey that knowledge to others. That could be useful both professionally and in other parts of life.
URBAN I SUSTAINABILITY I FOUNDATIONAL
JEFFERSON HU B.S. in Mechanical Engineering
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? Engineers are open-minded professionals, always ready to consider a new way of doing things. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? Decades ago, mechanical engineers might have pulled out a slide rule to make calculations, and while it’s still a field very much based on mathematics and physics, we live in an age of advanced technology now, and we have many tools at our disposal. Mechanical engineers have always had the foundational knowledge to make contributions in a variety of fields, and those fields are only increasing in variety and importance. I’ve accepted a job as a field service engineer at Rockwell Automation, and I could be working on anything from aerospace or automotive equipment to infrastructure projects, chemical manufacturing, or power generation. The common goal is to make whatever you’re working on more efficient, smarter, and more scalable. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? I was able to pursue rocketry, an area that I was really interested in, as the founder of Rogue Aerospace, which is a Vertically Integrated Project. It taught me to meet challenges head-on, because as a rocketry enthusiast in New York City, it’s not as though you can just walk out onto Flatbush Avenue and test what you’ve built. I was also on Tandon’s Concrete Canoe team — which requires practicing rowing on a clean, placid body of water, so that posed its challenges as well.
HEALTH I ENGINEERING OPPORTUNITY I FOUNDATIONAL
ROXIE FLOYD B.S. in Science and Technology Studies minors in Math and Biomolecular Science What does it mean to you to be an engineer? Engineers and technologists have to understand that the things we make affect real human beings and we need to develop a relationship not just with what they create but with the people using what they create. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? I began my college career studying mechanical engineering, and I signed on to a Vertically Integrated Project that involved 3D printing custom orthotics for young patients with cerebral palsy who quickly outgrow their devices and often run into issues with insurance companies as a result. So if you think of a mechanical engineer as someone who builds aircraft or robots, that’s not entirely true anymore; mechanical engineering and its subfields are becoming less isolated in a lab setting and more interactive. So, hopefully, an engineer can be the person who gets to see the look on a child’s face when they regain the use of their arm.
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I switched to Science and Technology Studies because I realized I could serve as a bridge between the people building the tech and the people using it. That’s an important relationship, and it runs deeper than a lot of people realize; technology is developing so fast it’s hard for policymakers, ethicists, and others to keep up, so someone has to facilitate closing the gap between them, and that’s where STS scholars have been quickly stepping up, the past several years in particular. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? If I hadn’t gone to a school that had such strong relationships with its hospital system, I wouldn’t have been able to work with patients, and I might never have known how gratifying it was to gain an understanding of both the tech and the human sides of a project simultaneously. You hear a lot of talk about things being multidisciplinary, but I got to really see the importance of merging engineering and the humanities and ended up making that the focus of my thesis.
Back then, I was interested in computers but there really was no dedicated course of study, so I had to major in electrical engineering. I had good jobs at the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, a radio network and a maker of scientific instruments, and I ultimately became a systems architect at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Still, I began to feel that something was missing. I had learned a lot as an electrical engineering major, certainly enough to do very well in my career, but I wanted to know the theory behind the computer science I was doing on a daily basis. That’s what prompted me to return to school, and luckily, by then, computer science and engineering had become a popular course of study. That’s a change I was happy to see. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? I’m currently a manager of search engineering and information retrieval at IBM, and while I hadn’t exactly been looking for a new career, it aligned perfectly with my area of academic research. (I have to admit that it wasn’t easy to conduct doctoral studies while working full time, but I’m glad I persevered.) So Tandon definitely set me on that new path. Additionally, because I’ve also been teaching courses here as an adjunct, I’ve gotten to see how rewarding that is; there’s really nothing like hearing that you helped a student or changed their life, and Tandon opened up that possibility for me.
What academic year was the most challenging? DATA & AI
JUAN RODRIGUEZ Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering
4TH YEAR 3RD YEAR
16.4%
10.7%
2ND YEAR
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? Being an engineer is a lifelong pursuit that requires updating your knowledge on a continual basis and an eagerness to face new challenges. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? I’ve witnessed enormous changes since I completed my undergraduate degree in 1983.
30%
1ST YEAR
42.9%
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“ WITH YOUR TOOL BOX FILLED W THE BEST OF LUCK AS YOU GO O SOLVE PROBLEMS AND MAKE TH
and working going on remotely. Zoom and other similar technologies have been around for a while, but only in a niche way. Now countless people are taking advantage of them. It’s a very good thing that we were ready to leverage those technologies or many of us would not have weathered the pandemic as well as we did. I’d eventually like to make contributions to the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which is a whole new type of frontier. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? DATA & AI
ABHISHEK SHARMA M.S. in Computer Science
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? Engineers are optimal problem-solvers who take into consideration the requirements of their users. They’re lucky to be on the forefront of massive improvements in the world. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape?
I’m really proud to have worked in Tandon’s Faculty Innovations in Teaching and Learning Center. Besides being the ones who ensured that the transition to distance learning went as seamlessly as possible, we’re also working on new products and platforms. When I was hired in 2019, I was assigned to develop a system for automatically grading assignments involving 3D CAD software. It’s now being used in the Mechanical Engineering Department and working out very well for both faculty and students. I’d say that NYU Tandon educated me as a student, challenged me as a professional, and empowered me as a person.
Computer science is constantly being redefined and revolutionized. Look at what has happened in the last year alone. There is so much learning 12 // CLASS OF 2021 COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY • MAY 19, 2021 • NYU TANDON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
WITH SKILLS, I WISH YOU ALL ON BEYOND GRADUATION TO HE WORLD A BETTER PLACE.” - FLORENCE TONG ’20
like myself, is to stay abreast of developments and not get left behind simply because people don’t understand how much value we can add. We can add plenty of value and we’re incorporating cutting-edge new technologies into what we do.
SUSTAINABILITY I WIRELESS I DATA & AI
DAJR ALFRED
I’m particularly interested in sustainability initiatives, like wireless power transfer for electric-vehicle applications, and I’m also exploring the use of artificial intelligence in the control of electrical systems, which has the potential to be both quicker and less costly. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself?
How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape?
My undergraduate degree supplied me with a practical foundation, but NYU Tandon allowed me to study with pioneers in the field who could help me get to the next level, like Dariusz Czarkowski, Thomas Marzetta, Yao Wang, Ivan Selesnick, Matt Campisi and Yury Dvorkin. Because the school stresses collaboration, I’ve learned the value of being part of a team, and that’s been important to my growth, as well. Just facing the challenges every international student faces, such as adapting to a new culture and finding a place to live, has taught me to be unafraid of challenges.
Just look at the name of my academic department at NYU Tandon: Electrical and Computer Engineering. From that alone, you can surmise how modern electrical engineering has grown and changed. The challenge for power engineers,
I just received a Future Leader Ph.D. Fellowship that will start this fall, so I’m sure I’ll change and grow more in the coming years at NYU Tandon. I do believe that although I was born elsewhere, I was made in Brooklyn!
M.S. in Electrical Engineering
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? We’re essentially sculptors and artists; our creations are shaping what the world looks like.
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SUSTAINABILITY I URBAN
MELANIE TRIPLETT B.S. in Sustainable Urban Environments
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? I’ve learned from studying at an engineering school that the engineering world is expansive; there’s room for people from adjacent disciplines to both influence and be influenced. My work, for example, could help engineers develop cleaner technologies. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? Sustainability seems to be a buzzword now in the way that it was not even just a few years ago. That’s a welcome change. It’s redefining everything from how cities are built to how companies are run. I’m working right now with an initiative that rates businesses on factors like how much water they use and their level of greenhouse gas emissions. That concept is part of the term Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance or ESG, which refers to three important factors in measuring the overall impact of an enterprise.
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SUE, as a major, has evolved as the general public conversation evolved; that means, for one, thing, that we’re all paying a lot more attention to issues of environmental and social justice — who gets to benefit from improvements in sustainability and who gets left behind. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? When you study a deeply interdisciplinary subject, you get to choose where to place your focus and what path you ultimately want to take. Tandon allowed me to participate in a wide variety of courses and consider a wide variety of options, such as public policy, which might not be a pursuit you automatically associate with an engineering school.
How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? As an environmental engineer, I’m studying wastewater treatment training to design pollutionprevention systems and creating solutions to remediate environmental problems. In this field, we’re focused on protecting public health via maintaining good environmental quality. It’s been around for a long time, as sanitary engineering, but it really took off as a profession in the early 1900s, when the public became aware of the dangers of waterborne pathogens contaminating our water sources and threatening human health. I’m working on a wastewater-based epidemiology project now that seeks to monitor the trends in COVID-19 disease prevalence through evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater at the community scale. That’s possible because infected individuals excrete the virus particles into our city’s sewer system. My part is to determine what wastewater parameters are associated with New York City populations and can be used to normalize measured virus concentration. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself?
SUSTAINABILITY I URBAN I HEALTH
YITAO LI M.S. in Environmental Engineering
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? The highest priority of engineers is to find workable, realistic solutions with realistic approaches, and they’ll tackle a problem from every angle to do it.
Tandon allowed me to take both environmental engineering-related and environmental psychology-related courses as an undergraduate before moving into environmental engineering, so that gave me a broad technical and social science background. I was deeply influenced by Professor Andrea Silverman, and working in her lab is what convinced me to focus on wastewater treatment and water quality-related issues. Another formative experience was belonging to the NYU Tandon Chinese Students & Scholars Association. I joined as a freshman and was made president this year; I’m very proud of the work we do to help Chinese students studying away from their home adjust to a new environment, something we all had to do at some point.
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allow me to merge my interests in tech, creativity, and business. I foresee being able to aid in the development of innovative new designs and processes — something that’s important in most industries — and leverage everything I’ve learned in the process. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself?
EMERGING MEDIA I SUSTAINABILITY
FLORENTINA SERGIOU B.S. in Integrated Digital Media, double minors in Sustainable Urban Environments and Business of Entertainment, Media & Technology
What does it mean to you to be an engineer?
Some people might not think of an engineering school as the best place to learn communication skills, but that hasn’t been my experience. I’ve worked as a communications intern at NASA’s Langley Research Center, and I helped a bilingual consulting firm totally digitize their workspace and user experience. I also served as the Communications Team Lead at the NYU MakerSpace, which involved marketing, social media, and event planning, as well as innovating the space to make it more accessible and sustainable. Like tech management itself, those skills will be useful in whatever industry I ultimately join.
Engineers are creative, innovative people; in part, that’s why it’s been so interesting studying design and media in an engineering school setting. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? Everyone is beginning to recognize that there is not a strict divide between tech skills and artistic skills — it’s very possible to work at the intersection. The whole point of a program like IDM is to merge artistic inquiry with scientific research and technological practice. It’s why we don’t just learn to code in order to build software; we consider coding a creative activity and code a creative medium. And even if you’re purely a computer scientist or software developer, it can be interesting to keep in mind all the creative avenues your skills can open up for you. Other examples are turning 3D models into physical 3D prints and using new materials such as growing and molding mycelium substrate. I got to work directly at the intersection of tech and art during many projects. One of my favorites involved designing wildlife figures composed of simple geometric shapes on Adobe Illustrator. I then laser cut the designs using acrylic to create wall decor and used a CNC machine to mill the animal designs into jewelry pieces that raise awareness of endangered species. I’m actually staying at Tandon to earn a graduate degree in Management of Technology, which will
EMERGING MEDIA I ENGINEERING OPPORTUNITY
SAKI ASAKAWA M.S. in Integrated Digital Media
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? Engineers are the “engine” of any team, so they don’t necessarily have to be programmers or technical specialists. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? Right now, I’m leading a user-experience research project with Professor Regine Gilbert to develop accessibility guidelines for Extended Reality, which
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involves things like augmented reality and virtual reality. Not all that long ago, that would not have been a possibility, but those technologies are rapidly moving into the mainstream, just as mobile devices did. Who knows what’s next? My thesis project involves ways to help people with vision impairments enjoy sports events. Currently, they rely on audio descriptions by commentators or sounds produced by crowds and players, and the quality of the experience varies widely. Based on field research, I designed an IOS application that incorporates haptic feedback during tennis matches, and users reported that they understood the gameplay much better with haptic signals added to the audio. I’d like to expand the system to other sports eventually. Many people have been working in the accessibility field, but the world is still not accessible enough. Perhaps what I can do as an individual is limited, but I can keep moving forward and taking small steps towards making it a more accessible place for all. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? I studied at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Tandon, and I did some interesting projects there, such as collaborating with the Andy Warhol Museum to implement a navigation system and location-based audio description on iOS. I was fully focused on people with visual impairments. When I got to Tandon and learned from people like Professor Gilbert and Professor Amy Hurst, I expanded my awareness of mobility challenges and other issues important in the field. Students have a lot of opportunities to learn new things here and discover new paths to follow, and that’s part of what makes Tandon so special.
Favorite study spot on campus?
EMERGING MEDIA I ENGINEERING OPPORTUNITY
KEITA OHSHIRO M.S. in Integrated Digital Media
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? Engineers merge disciplines and ways of thinking. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? My work and study have been conducted against an expansive and interdisciplinary backdrop that I think is characteristic of the way the world is headed. My undergraduate studies were in the liberal arts, and I started my career in a musicrelated business. I was fascinated by tech, however, and after teaching myself to code, I returned to school to study computer science and math. When I discovered the Integrated Digital Media program, I knew I had found a way to merge all my worlds. My research involved ways of making mathematical graphs, which are very visual, accessible to people with vision impairments by using audio. I’m preparing to now go on to a Ph.D. program, where I’ll focus on human-computer interaction and machine learning, still with the goal of using audio for accessibility. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself?
Dibner Library
I arrived at Tandon with a general desire to do something societally beneficial, but the IDM curriculum helped me hone in on a mission, particularly after I took part in the multidisciplinary Ability Project. I began to realize that it’s not enough to want to “help people,” because that’s a condescending, one-sided way of viewing it; you have to design the products and services with people of all abilities.
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“ GO FORTH IN YOUR LIVES AND FOR THE GOOD OF FAMILY, FOR AND FRIENDS, AND LASTLY, FOR
How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? As a student at NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress, I’m hoping to help make urban topics more accessible to the public and introduce lower barriers of entry for those interested in being a part of community change.
URBAN I DATA & AI
AREN KABARAJIAN M.S. in Applied Urban Science and Informatics
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? Engineers find solutions and build things needed for the long term.
I’d like to provide a bridge between the engineering and civic field through visualizations, accessible web tools, and low-tech data solutions. Through a hackathon, I recently had the opportunity to serve as a Machine Learning Consultant for the MTA. During that engagement I leveraged train-ridership data and time series modeling for forecasting train capacity, to be used in the consumer-facing application. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? I came from the field of programmatic advertising, and Tandon has helped me learn completely new topics in data science and GIS to shift my career.
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D WORK FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, R THE GOOD OF NEIGHBORS R THE GOOD OF SOCIETY.” - DOUGLAS FRANKE ’70
penicillin, saving countless lives during World War II. The world is really waking up to how important advances in this field are; look how happy people are to be getting vaccinated against COVID-19, thanks to the scientists who worked so diligently on the problem. I want to eventually work in the pharmaceutical industry, but right now, after graduation I’ll be headed to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to work on a bone-marrow research project. HEALTH
JULIA MONKOVIC B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? Engineers are good at science and math, but they have to be creative as well. They use both sides of their brain. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? Chemical and biomolecular engineers are reshaping medical care, and if you’re familiar at all with Tandon history, you can point to some major examples right here, like Jasper Kane, the alum who figured out how to mass produce
How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? One of the most important experiences I had was participating in Tandon’s Undergraduate Summer Research Program. I worked in Professor Jin Montclare’s protein engineering lab, and that really showed me the bigger picture in a way that just studying in a classroom doesn’t. I became truly open at that point to the wide possibilities CBE presented, and that set me on my current path. I was also a Science Outreach and Research (SOAR) fellow, which allowed me to mentor local high school students and get them excited about STEM. I used 3D-printed models of several antigens and antibodies to teach a lesson on immunity, and I later authored a paper about the experience that was published in the Journal of Biological Education. I’m not sure how many undergrads at other schools get to work early on in high-profile faculty labs or get to be lead author on published work.
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From the minute I entered NYU Tandon, I have been cheered on and mentored, and that’s made all the difference for me.
HEALTH
BRITTNEY TIFFAULT B.S. in Biomolecular Science
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? Engineers push the boundaries to make things better; paraphrasing a T-shirt I once saw, even if it’s not broken, fix it. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? Biomolecular scientists and engineers are now making enormous contributions to clinical care and collaborating to solve intractable problems. I’m fascinated by how far we’ve come but also by how much further we can go. My particular area of interest is the intersection of neuroscience and engineering. When I think about a problem like spinal cord injuries . . . they can paralyze you for life, yet that doesn’t make sense. There’s a solution out there; we just have to crack the code. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? Back in high school, I launched a future scientists and physicians club, but when I got to Tandon it became much clearer how I could go about merging my interests in biology, engineering, and invention. I continually picked my professors’ brains, and when I had the chance to volunteer in Professor Kalle Levon’s lab, I jumped at it. He’s known for his work in assisting clinicians with point-of-care diagnostics, so that was a great experience. I’ve also had the opportunity to complete a research internship at Johns Hopkins, as well as to participate in NYU Langone Health’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program, where I searched for biomarkers for pancreatic cancer.
HEALTH
ELIZABETH WILKINSON B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? Because of working at the intersection of many disciplines, engineers wear a lot of different hats. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? We’re all working within an increasingly complex world to solve increasingly complex problems. Right now, I’m working with researchers at NYU Langone to explore a drug called DHEA. It shows promise for helping bone to heal faster, particularly in patients with diabetes, for whom a simple fracture can be long lasting and problematic. DHEA normally has a lot of side effects, but because we’re working with an injectable form that goes right to the site of the injury, some of those might be avoided. I’m going to embark on a Ph.D. program, where I’ll focus on nano-bio-technology, a field that will allow me to make contributions to finding new therapeutics and methods of drug delivery. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? Tandon gave me a lot of room to explore my different interests and join various extracurricular groups like the student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
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I took one of the first classes Professor Nathalie Pinkerton offered when she initially began teaching at Tandon, and I got hooked. Before she got here she had worked in the oncology research unit of a major pharmaceutical company, investigating novel nano-medicines for the treatment of solid tumors. Working in her lab set me on my current path. And because of Tandon’s focus on entrepreneurship, I can foresee possibly launching my own company one day.
more accessible and inclusive to more people. That can only be improved if educational platforms, materials, and teaching methods are re-designed. Education is the foundation of everything, so when it works well, it has a ripple effect outwards to the rest of the world. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? Having the skills I developed at Tandon means having the power to make needed change. I can point to a course I took with Beth Simone Noveck, the founder of NYU Tandon’s GovLab, which is dedicated to using data and technology to improve how governments work. I later helped her develop Solving Public Problems, a free, online program that lets ordinary people develop the skills they need to make a difference in their own communities. I also took a course on Community Resilience with Benedetta Piantella and Elizabeth Henaff, in which I learned how communities are making change and building resilience today, and how I could contribute to that resilience tomorrow.
ENGINEERING OPPORTUNITY I EMERGING MEDIA
CAITLIN GEBHARD M.S. in Integrated Digital Media
Which subway line do you ride to campus the most?
What does it mean to you to be an engineer?
2/3
Engineers build physical or digital artifacts, and they need designers like me to aid in that process. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which guarantees equal opportunity for people with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, government services, and telecommunications, was signed into law in 1990. Designers have been thinking about the concept of accessibility for a few decades now, and the field is constantly evolving to keep up with the world. Accessibility has become more visible in tech and as a social justice issue, but there is still a long way to go. I’m most interested in working in the area of accessibility in education. Now that so much teaching is being done online, there are a lot of opportunities to make materials and practices
4/5
5.1%
2.9%
R
21.3%
B/D 2.9%
N/Q R/W
F
20%
A/C
14.7%
33.1%
CLASS OF 2021 COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY • MAY 19, 2021 • NYU TANDON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING // 21
technology-based initiatives, so I arrived at Tandon with an interest in educational technology. I’ve been able to hone that here and have been given a lot of opportunities to take on increased responsibility: for example, I worked with the GovLab to develop a free, online course on public problem-solving, and I manage instructional technology efforts for 50 NYU faculty members. Over the course of my time here so far, I’ve come to see the importance of engineering small, practical solutions when they apply: not everything has to be flashy. ENGINEERING OPPORTUNITY I EMERGING MEDIA
NELSON JAMES B.S. in Science and Technology Studies
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? Engineers must always be thinking of the implications of what they’re building; in the drive to solve one problem, you can inadvertently cause another. How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape? I took up Science and Technology Studies and will be staying on at Tandon to earn a master’s degree in Integrated Digital Media because the world needs people grounded in those topics. We love tech and creativity, and we can get engineers from all disciplines to imagine the end result of what they’re doing. Sometimes, that’s a big leap of imagination, because it’s easy to get so focused on fixing a narrow problem that you lose sight of the bigger picture. In general, I think engineers are now getting increasingly in tune with that bigger picture.
CYBERSECURITY
PERIWINKLE DOERFLER Ph.D. in Computer Science
What does it mean to you to be an engineer? You don’t have to build bridges or software security systems to be an engineer; I build policy recommendations.
How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself?
How is your field being redefined for today and tomorrow’s needs? What contributions do you hope to make to this redefined landscape?
As a teenager I developed a core curriculum for introductory courses in video and television production and helped instructors implement
We used to think of cybersecurity experts as protecting entities like governments and banks from adversaries; that’s because those entities
22 // CLASS OF 2021 COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY • MAY 19, 2021 • NYU TANDON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
were the ones using computer systems. Today, everyone uses personal computers and cell phones, and I’m interested in protecting them. Chances are that you, as an individual, aren’t going to be the target of organized hacking in the way a bank or government agency is. You’re much more likely to be the victim of tech-facilitated domestic violence, such as when someone misuses a child-tracking app to stalk a partner. Using social media can leave you open to cyberbullying, harassment and doxing. We’ve found, as well, that researchers and scholars working on controversial topics leave themselves open to online abuse from those who don’t like their ideological stances or who feel threatened by the research findings, such as criminals who traffic in counterfeit goods and don’t want to be exposed by scholars studying online marketplaces. None of those things require sophisticated hacking; two-thirds of all cell-phone users give their partners access to their devices, and if you’re using social media or publishing research results, your information is right out there. After graduation, I’ll be working at Facebook, so I hope I’ll be effecting positive change from the inside. How did NYU Tandon help you redefine yourself? This is probably not the most feel-good story, but I myself was once the subject of doxing and harassment as a result of a research paper I coauthored. That just fueled my determination to continue my studies. That said, I could not have asked for a more wonderful, supportive advisor than Damon McCoy, and I think the atmosphere at Tandon is unlike anywhere else. I have friends in other computer science doctoral programs who describe them as very cut-throat, but at Tandon, everyone wants you to succeed and will do everything they can to encourage you. The attitude is that a rising tide lifts all boats, so a success for one is a success for all.
CLASS OF 2021 COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY • MAY 19, 2021 • NYU TANDON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING // 23
ABOUT OUR SCHOOL THE NYU TANDON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute. A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences as part of a global university, with close connections to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. NYU Tandon is rooted in a vibrant tradition of entrepreneurship, intellectual curiosity, and innovative solutions to humanity’s most pressing global challenges. We believe diversity is integral to excellence, and are creating a vibrant, inclusive, and equitable environment for all of our students, faculty and staff.
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THE SCHOOL BANNER The Processional Banner features the New York University torch, along with both the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, symbolizing the connection of two strong boroughs and highlighting the importance of engineering as a bridge between disciplines.
CLASS OF 2021 COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY • MAY 19, 2021 • NYU TANDON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING // 25
engineering.nyu.edu | #NYUTandonMade 26 // CLASS OF 2021 COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY • MAY 19, 2021 • NYU TANDON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING