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article Spring 2022

Engineered Intention: UW-Madison’s First Woman Engineer Pursued Her Degree on Principle

By Kristy Wendt Emily Hahn recalls in her memoir No Hurry to Get Home the act of rebellion that made a place for all women in the College of Engineering at UW-Madison. Though nearly fifty years had passed since women received full coeducational status at UW-Madison in 1875, an unspoken ceiling remained over the College […]

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article Fall 2022

Blast From the Past: Revisiting “A Hot Trail”

By Kristy Wendt Tasked with investigating the intentions of rival engineers, UW-Madison civil engineering alumnus John Lane (J. L.) Van Ornum set off on a clandestine reconnaissance mission for the chief engineer of a Virginia railroad, posing as a bird hunter. He describes his escapade in a roman à clef titled “A Hot Trail” for […]

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article Spring 2023

Becoming an Engineer Across the Pond

By: Sarah Gerovac Choosing to study abroad, especially for UW-Madison engineering students who are already pursuing challenging degrees, can be a difficult choice to make. Now that I’ve taken the leap, here’s why I think that you should, too. Studying abroad had been an idea floating in the back of my mind for much of […]

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article Spring 2023

ESW: The Art of Designing Sustainable Solutions as a Team

By: Paige Dollevoet ESW is an entirely student run organization devoted to environmentally relevant projects, hands-on experience, and teamwork.  What do aquaponics, saving the bees, and solar powered charging stations have in common? If you guessed that they are all pillars of the Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW), then you are right! ESW is […]

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article Spring 2023

Drive to Survive: Fact or Fiction?

By: Isabelle Egizio The newest season of Netflix’s acclaimed docuseries Drive to Survive tells a story of drama and rivalries between the twenty drivers and ten teams in Formula One, but does it accurately portray the hidden world of this competitive sport? The first season of Drive to Survive debuted on Netflix in 2019, and […]

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article Spring 2023

Design for Rehabilitation: From Clinic to Classroom 

By: Mary Laudon Dr. Christopher Luzzio, neurologist and associate professor of mechanical engineering, brings challenges from the clinic into the classroom in BME 601: Design for Rehabilitation. Many engineering courses teach students how to design, but few classes show students how to put their designs into practice and improve the lives of others. Taught by […]

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article Spring 2023

What’s in a Name?

By: Alexandra Stoesz UW-Madison holds a rich history and has been home to many influential figures since its founding. Many of these figures have been memorialized on campus, allowing their legacies to still be appreciated today.  In the May 1974 issue of Wisconsin Engineer, then student Judy Endejan writes of an important new fixture soon […]

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article Spring 2023

Potatoes and Insects and Telescopes – Oh My! Applying Engineering to UW-Madison’s Research

By: Lucy Steffes From building telescopes to constructing models to predict the phenotypes of potatoes, science research at UW-Madison relies on a diverse range of engineering expertise. With a yearly budget of $1.4 billion, UW-Madison, one of the world’s foremost research universities, ranked 8th in the nation when it comes to yearly spending on research, […]

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article Spring 2023

The Road to Unraveling the Secrets of the Universe starts with … -1/12

By: Lucy Steffes One of the most important values in all of physics is -1/12, and the number comes about only by staring infinity in the face and accepting it as nothing more than a convenient mathematical idea. If you were to add all the natural numbers – every positive integer from one to infinity […]

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article Fall 2022

Baja SAE: Building Connections and Cars with Automotive Engineering

By Sarah Gerovac Most engineering students at UW-Madison have some grasp of the importance of extracurriculars, especially when it comes to finding real-world experience that will prove beneficial in the job market. In fact, there are over 50 engineering-specific organizations scattered around campus, vying for their next new member. However, while there are several clubs […]