Alessandra Ferzoco began identifying as a scientist when she started in a program in high school that allowed her to join a molecular biology research lab at nearby University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). From there, she embarked on a “career built around labs.”

Ferzoco chose to attend UCSB as an undergraduate to continue her work in the molecular biology lab, and being accepted into the College of Creative Studies allowed her to fast-track her studies. The College allowed students to design their own majors, bypass some of the prerequisites to get to more advanced content more quickly, and work on their own independent research.

“I switched into a physical chemistry lab, which was a completely foreign environment—everything was stainless steel,” says Ferzoco. “The lab was using devices to try to understand the fundamental physics of why biological molecules adopt the shapes they do.”

Ferzoco became particularly interested in the different shapes DNA helices can fold into, which could lead to better understanding of what they can do in the body. During this time, she became interested in the devices facilitating her work.

“Everything I was studying was in a vacuum and uninterrupted by their usual contexts,” says Ferzoco. “I liked the scale of the problem—I was examining only the physics of DNA folding.”

After earning her B.S. in Chemistry from UCSB, Ferzoco considered applying to medical school, but she changed her mind too late to apply to other graduate programs. She took the opportunity and moved to East Coast, where she worked as a research assistant in a lab in the physical chemistry department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

After a year, she joined the Ph.D. in Chemistry program at Chapel Hill, spending the first several years working on building devices that would bring more detailed understandings about the fundamentals of chemical reactions.

After earning her Ph.D., Ferzoco was awarded a five-year Rowland Fellowship at Harvard, where she built devices to generate and trap ions and ion-molecule complexes and then measure their reactions using mass spectrometry and laser spectroscopy.

“Photosynthesis is useful but complicated, and humans can’t rebuild the millions of constituents that cells use to complete the process,” says Ferzoco. “However, smaller molecules also use sunlight, and no one understood how, so we sought to learn more about them and electron transfer mechanisms.”

Amy Phung's engineering imagination came to life the moment she saw a Mars rover model during a 4th-grade class trip to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “I thought to myself: I want to work on that…. And when I realized that engineers make things, I decided to be an engineer.”

Amy looked for an engineering school that provided a hands-on approach to learning combined with a strong community feeling, and after experiencing Candidates’ Weekend, she knew that Olin was the right place for her.

At Olin, Amy became a co-creator of her educational experience combining her robotics coursework with a SEA (Sea Education Association) semester program during which she sailed the waters of New Zealand and studied the ocean. “Because of Olin’s flexibility and the trust they placed in me, I was able to self-design my coursework, which put my robotics study in a bigger context and allowed me to discover deepwater robotics.”

After graduating from Olin, Amy will be attending MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to pursue higher degrees related to deepwater robotic software engineering. Recognizing her achievements at Olin, the National Science Foundation (NSF) honored Amy with its prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program award that will provide support during her graduate studies.

Faculty mentors make a big difference for students at Olin. Professor Dave Barret asked her to join the team working on robotic tractors, which changed Amy’s focus from self-driving cars to robotics. “I am thankful to Professor Barrett for encouraging me to learn more about robotic software design, helping me understand more about the robotics industry, and working with me to envision what my post-Olin career would look like.”   

Amy’s experience at Olin, and her relationships with faculty and peers, provided her with the knowledge and skills related to robotics and the encouragement to improve the world in her own way. “Olin brings the skillset you learn into a larger context of how to be impactful in the world…it’s built into the coursework,” says Amy, who wants to contribute to the study of climate change through her contributions to deep-sea robotics. “The faculty constantly push you to think about how you can solve big problems through engineering, and my peers helped me realize that I can really make an impact.”

Major: Engineering with a concentration in computing

One thing I enjoy about Olin is just how dedicated all of the students are to teaching each other. The amount of learning and knowledge I picked up from other undergrads has been pretty incredible. I've done my best in the last year and a half to give some of that back. I hope successfully.

Outside of class, one main things I do on campus is participate in the Formula SAE Team. Formula is one of the bigger project teams at Olin, and our goal as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers is building an electric race car.

But we have our own set of priorities and routine in addition to the competition. Those include trying to teach new members to do all sorts of things. I joined my first year and really enjoyed it. I became part of the leadership team as a sophomore, which is relatively common.

If I talked about Formula for an hour, I would spend most of the time just talking about how we teach people and what the engineering education benefits are. And then I would talk about the car ­– which is super fun, like a go-kart on steroids. It’s a blast to drive. I love it.

The competition we're participating in really tosses engineers into the event in a way that even Olin's very project-based learning curriculum doesn't quite do. For example, I am a software engineer. I didn't know any electrical engineering before coming to Olin. A lot of what I know I’ve learned through Formula. Two people who were the core of the team's leadership when I joined were hugely influential in my learning. They taught me a lot about electric vehicles, which is ultimately the career path that I ended up on. I interned at Tesla in the past and I'm going back this summer.

In high school, my interests were mostly theoretical. I knew I was good at math and science, but didn't have a whole lot of particularly targeted, applied interests. At the end of the day, the biggest thing I've gotten out of the hands-on learning at Olin is becoming more comfortable with solving unstructured problems.

Susan and Chris Murphy, both members of Olin’s first graduating Class of 2006, have maintained a longstanding commitment to the College over the years along with their peers.

“Alongside all of our classmates in the class of ’06, we personally benefited greatly from the merit-based tuition scholarship, in a manner that was unique to Olin,” says Susan.

Since the inception of the Alumni Merit Scholarship Fund, the Murphys have split their donation between the AMSF and the Olin Fund each year. “Our goals are to both support the current great work being done at Olin via the Olin Fund, and to also support the long-term goal of reviving a full-tuition merit scholarship for all students via the AMSF.”

Susan and Chris live near Boston with their children and enjoy connecting with other alumni families in the area. After graduating from Olin, Chris pursued a Ph.D. focused on subsea robotics at MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). He enjoys building subsea systems and working on how to sense and communicate underwater using acoustics. “I enjoy the mix of engineering, math and science required to work in such a unique domain,” he says.

Susan recently joined Boston University as the executive director for a new research initiative around sustainable finance after spending the last 12 years in the consulting industry. Her new role in BU’s Impact Measurement and Assessment Program is to lead academic research projects that help the finance industry understand how they can incorporate environmental and social metrics into their corporate assessments.

“The Olin community has always inspired me to produce high quality work that can make a positive difference, and it continues to do so,” says Susan. “It’s a community full of people that take on hard interdisciplinary challenges, set high expectations for each other on what can be achieved, and then support each other to make such achievements reality.”

“Olin gave us so much—financially via the merit scholarship, educationally, and personally via the network of amazing people that we now know well. We want to ‘pay-it-forward’ and ensure others can likewise have such great experiences.

On March 11, 2016 I sat in MH 212 with the admission committee and much of the admission and financial aid staff selecting Candidates we would admit to the Olin Class of 2020. This was my first class as Dean. This was a very big deal. The Candidates were outstanding, as I have since learned they are every year. I was excited, but also afraid. Would I get the class right? Would the students come? We met all day to craft a list of admits, fueled by various snacks and many urns of coffee. The next day on March 12, 2016, I pulled up the preliminary list of admits intending to go over it one more time. I poured over that list for hours. I reread essays and CW evaluation comments. I recalled wonderful moments with Candidates and their families. I looked at statistics, played through my yield model a few more times. And then, I exhaled. I had to trust the reading process, Candidates’ Weekends and ultimately, myself. The Class of 2020 was going to be great.

And they were.

Four years later in March 2020, we learned campus was closing and remote learning and working would commence to keep the community safe. As Oliners do, folks sprung into action to create Fauxmencement. I knew I had to help. This was the graduation of my first class! I ran to the grocery store for bubbles and sidewalk chalk. I jumped at the chance to be one of the two readers for the students’ 13-words, epigrams to their Olin experience read out as our premature graduates cross the quickly constructed stage. On March 12, 2020, exactly four years from when I made the final call on my first round of admission decisions at Olin, the Class of 2020 was celebrated with origami caps, trash bag gowns, music, laughter and speeches.

As I stood surrounded by bubbles and pom poms next to a dear colleague, poised and ready to read the words of my first class, I exhaled again. In part this exhale was to stave off tears I knew would come. Tears of joy tinged with a little sadness and fear of what was to come in the world. But this exhale was mostly filled with pride for the Class of 2020, the community that upheld them and the chance to be a part of our corner of the world filled with big thinkers and dreamers and doers.

Major: Mechanical Engineering

My mom talks about the look I had on my face the first time we visited Olin. It was the summertime, so there were no students on campus. But when I saw the machine shop, she said I was like a kid putting his face against the window of a toy shop.

It was one of the deciding factors that brought me to Olin. Once you’re here, you find out you can use the machines almost whenever you want and that there are a lot of resources for you to learn. Whether you're using a machine for a class or a personal project or a project team, there are a ton of resources like shop assistants and shop staff that you can access.

Now, I’m a mechanical engineering major and one of the project managers for Olin Baja, a project team of about 30 students who design, fabricate, and race off-road racing vehicles.

Olin's education is very project-based. With the Baja team, you're doing the project just to do the project. I'm learning along the way, which is amazing. During the pandemic it's been the best way to interact with first year students who I ordinarily wouldn't get to hang out with.

I thought it was really cool that from day one there is a priority at Olin on doing stuff. I think the fact that we don't really have midterms or tests very often is a testament to that. A lot of times your final project is showing off what cool thing you learned or what cool thing you did.

There's a class traditionally taken your first semester of sophomore year, called Principles of Engineering. And they say the first day you decide what your project is going to be. The entire project is the journey of you getting there and demonstrating what you learned and what you did with a team of advisors.

During that class it really stood out for me that rather than staying up until 3 A.M. studying and flipping through books, you might be staying up but you're actively working on components or you're getting that arm to actuate the way you wanted to or you're standing by and waiting for your 3D print to finish. You're building and doing things.
 

I imagined that I would arrive at Olin to big groups of people running through hallways filled with laughter, students sprawled out on the great lawn, dorm rooms filled with big conversations and an energy that was undeniably contagious. 

I arrived to a campus that was quieter than anticipated; where hallways had to stay mostly empty and the dining hall could never be at its usual capacity. We met our professors for the first time through our laptop screens, going through virtual orientation from quarantine in each of our rooms without having ever sat in the Nord Auditorium as a class.

Still, I found that same spark of energy in little places. In walks around Olin’s campus and nightly crosswords in the lounge I became a part of the Olin community that I had dreamed of. The push to create, and the push to lean in feels tangible in my conversations and I’m continually inspired by the people around me. Here, I’m being pushed to pursue my questions and develop an understanding in a way I haven’t before. The solutions aren’t always intuitive or straightforward, but by being asked to work through them, I’ve learned more than a solution set or lecture could have taught me. Rather than just being taught concepts, I’m learning how to approach problems and be okay with feeling lost. Knowing that I have supportive resources around me pushes me to go farther on my own and dive deeper into challenges with a renewed sense of curiosity.

As I come to the end of my first year, I know that I have a lot more to learn. I am so grateful to be part of a community that challenges me, laughs with me and inspires me. Surrounded by genuine and compelling people, I’m excited about the woman I’m growing into.

Hi, I'm Jeff and along with running the LAIR Lab (Laboratory for Adaptation, Inclusion and Robotics) with our students at Olin, I teach courses such as Introduction to Sensors, Instrumentation and Measurement.

My research and teaching interests encompass some broad themes in marine robotics and hydrodynamic sensing, and accessibility and adaptive technology. In my robotics and sensing work, I draw lessons and inspiration from biological systems and a deep love of the ocean. My interest in accessibility started in childhood as well. My grandmother had Huntington's disease, used a wheelchair and needed a device that enabled her to type words and then spoke them for her.

Both robots and accessibility offer these great engineering challenges that I really enjoy taking on.

Olin allows me to do both, so that's great.

For example, since arriving in 2017, we've helped develop a better way for people in motorized wheelchairs to store and carry their possessions; designed assistive technology that adds sensors and a GPS system to motorized wheelchairs (to safely increase performance and make them more responsive to users’ needs); made a swarm of robot fish and more recently, I've been working on designing and developing a low-cost moored automatic mobile profiler with modular sensor payloads for monitoring of aquaculture farms.

If they’re running into a problem or not quite sure what to do, they know my students and I are passionate about thinking creatively and coming up with solutions to real world problems that really make a difference.

I'm also excited to have been just chosen by the IEEE's Oceanic Engineering Society as a Class of 2020 YP-BOOST Laureate. I'm also faculty advisor to the Olin Sailing team, so I'm on the water all the time!