Skills

Leadership

While pursuing my degree, I have had the opportunity to hold a variety of leadership positions. One of the most impactful ones was being Internal Programs Director for UF AIChE, a professional organization for chemical engineers. I led a committee of three officers that organized social and professional events for our members.

As the semester progressed, attendance for our events began to decrease. To combat this issue, I first had discussions with my committee and with the board of directors to brainstorm solutions. We talked about how to plan events that were fresh and exciting to engage members. We also discussed that AIChE is a people-driven organization, meaning members are more likely to come to events if they have friends that are also showing up. Our final solution was a list of new events that we thought were more exciting as well as determining to encourage our officers to talk with more members at the GBMs to encourage them to come to events. Ultimately, we were able to engage members and keep attendance at events from declining as the semester went on.

Project Management and Ambiguity

At Mars, my intern project was to commission a mini extruder at the R&D pilot facility so that it could be used for research. The goal was to test different pet food recipes and reach steady state with the machine to learn more about its ideal processing conditions. I went into the summer knowing nothing about extrusion, which made the entire experience challenging because I was in charge of a project at a new company, dealing with technologies I knew nothing about.

The first step was to gather information; I had meetings with managers about goals for the project and expected timelines, I gathered resources from company courses and online materials to learn as much as possible about extrusion, and I communicated with coworkers about problems I might face. From there, I began testing the recipes. Throughout the process, it was important to keep in communication with my managers about problems and progress as well as remind myself of the goal to keep from getting sidetracked. By the end of the summer, I had tested four different recipes and two new capabilities on the machine. This gave the company new information they could use to begin running trials on the mini extruder, which was smaller and more efficient than the machine they had previously been using.

Adaptability

As an intern in Singapore, I was part of a project to design a system that would breed fly larvae inside a shipping container so that it could be used as an alternative protein source. More specifically, my role was to reach out to vendors to discover the capabilities and costs of equipment that could fit into our project. Because we were working with limited budget and space, we had to make many adjustments as we communicated with vendors about what was possible.

During this process, it was important to keep constant communication with our team to ensure we were on the same page. We had at least two meetings a week to discuss the state of the project and ultimately decided to reduce the automation we would be using. Although we had not finished our work by the end of the summer, we had a completely different idea of what the process would look like and had already purchased two pieces of equipment to build the breeding system.

Creativity

Creativity is a necessary skill to innovate new ideas and improve existing processes. As Mentor-Mentee Coordinator for UF AIChE, I was able to showcase my creativity by improving the handover process for future coordinators. When I was given the position, I noticed there was a lack of documentation for what had previously been done in that position. To create an easier transition for future leaders in that role, I created a series of documents that would help provide details on everything that I had planned and what improvements I would make for the future. For example, I created a timeline that detailed when tasks and events should be completed throughout the semester and also made a document for the Mentor-Mentee Coordinator to give details and feedback about every event that was planned. The following semester, the new Mentor-Mentee Coordinator was able to more easily transition into the role and she mentioned that she often used the documents that I left to help her plan events and brainstorm ideas.