Women in STEM Scholarship Fund

In the fall of 2020, I started to experience an immense amount of back pain. This pain continued into 2021. Doctors were unable to find a cause or a diagnosis for the pain. In June of 2021, it was revealed that I had a large mass that was causing my back pain. I had emergency surgery to remove the mass. Because of the surgery, I was not allowed to swim for two months. Swimming is very important to me and it was very difficult to live without it. I missed 2 months of swimming competitively. During this time, I attended practices in order to prevent falling even farther behind. Even though I couldn't swim, I wanted to make an effort to be present. I was able to start swimming again right before my championship meet. I realized how far behind I fell, so I worked really hard during practices. My hard work paid off and I surprised myself at how well I bounced back. I learned the importance of having a strong work ethic and what it can do for someone’s life. My work ethic has never been stronger and has carried over into other aspects of my life. I became interested in engineering when I competed in the international Mathworks Math Modeling Challenge my junior year of high school. This competition gave my team a real world problem to solve in 14 hours. The real world problem addressed e-bikes and the growth of their usage. I collaborated with my team by creating math models to identify possible solutions. In the first part of the project, a model using multiple data regressions with data on gas prices, urban populations, and other variables were used to predict and show the growth of e-bike sales in the U.S. The next part of the project work determined that the used car index score and the percentage of the number of electric vehicles out of the total number of cars were the two most significant factors that affected the number of sales of e-bikes. Other factors were used to show a change in the number of e-bike sales. These factors were used in a Reduced Row-Echelon Form matrix to create an equation resulting in the total number of e-bikes sold. In the final section of the project, our model for e-bike growth is converted and equated to a shrinking number of cars on the road. We determined that e-bikes will reduce the growth of automobiles on the road by 3.647 million by 2028 which would reduce carbon dioxide and general traffic congestion by providing alternatives to busy roads. It would increase the general health of the nation by providing the same amount of exercise as traditional biking. Our typed proposal allowed my team to finish in the top 25% internationally. It was a fantastic experience for me. It allowed me to collaborate with a very diverse team who came from multiple different backgrounds to find a solution to a problem occurring in the real world. I explored a variety of career and college majors and I found engineers get to do this all of the time. I became super interested in engineering and decided that mechanical engineering would be the best fit for me. I am applying for this scholarship in hope that I can help represent women in engineering. Women are very underrepresented in the engineering field. According to The University of Toledo’s Strategic Plan for Diversity and Inclusion 2020-2023, only 18% of engineering students are female. It is important that female engineers are acknowledged as a contributing vital asset to the workforce.