 Whitney is a mechanical engineering major. Her SDSU activities include the Pride of the Dakotas Marching Band, the SDSU Drumline, Percussion Ensemble, Concert Band, Society of Women Engineers, Engineering Phonathon, and Engineering EXPO. She has interned for two summers at Mayo Clinic’s Biomechanics and Motion Analysis Laboratory.
Why did you go into mechanical engineering?
I attended the Youth Engineering Adventure program at SDSU and loved it. I’ve always wanted to know how things work and when I realized that engineering is making things work, I was sold. Mechanical engineering appealed to me the most, because I could learn theory and get my hands dirty in the shop at the same time.
Future plans: A master's degree in biomedical engineering.
What is your career goal?
Ideally, I’d like to build rockets, design new prosthetics, and build roller coasters, all in the same job. If that doesn’t work, I guess I’ll have to pick one of those!
What did you work on during your summer internships?
Two summers ago, I worked on an osteoarthritis study of more than 300 patients to determine if exercise affected the progress of the disease. I worked with MRI data to create a computer program to determine the amount of cartilage between knee bones. This past summer, I worked on prosthetics research. I analyzed data from individuals with an above-knee amputation and how those individuals walk. I studied their gait symmetry, which is how their prosthetic leg functions compared to their sound leg.
What have been some of your favorite SDSU classes?
I really liked Calculus III, Intro to Engineering, and I love going to marching band every afternoon in the fall. It's a great way to release some energy after a day full of sitting in classrooms.
What's the most interesting class project you've worked on?
For my Introduction to Engineering Design class--Robots class, as I call it--we had to build a machine that would climb a 45-degree incline, then battle another car. Designing our robot was really fun.
What’s one thing you never though you’d do before coming to SDSU?
I definitely never thought I’d be working on cutting-edge research at Mayo Clinic!
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