Angela Houghtaling

I am extremely honored to be the 2nd recipient of this award and everything it stands for. I am a rising junior in Biomedical Engineering who dreams of one day inventing a medical technology and making it into a start-up. After freshman year, I participated in a research internship in the Discovery Building through a research grant to image and characterize stem cells. This summer, I have been a product engineering intern at Plexus Corp’s Boulder Design Center working on a surgical robotics system that will hit the market in the next couple of years. I am also a first generation student from Milwaukee, WI, who has seen the impacts of education and outreach in inner city areas first-hand. I was fortunate enough to participate in the STEM Immersion program through my involvement with the LEED Scholars, another group that encourages and supports underrepresented groups in engineering. My experience in STEM immersion inspired me to take a class on diversity in leadership in the fields of STEM, which allowed me to develop myself as a mentor, a guide, and a friend. All of this brought me to my role as a peer mentor in the WISE living learning community, which has been one of the most rewarding, positive experiences I have undertaken. Through this role, I was able to interact 1-on-1 with first-year women in science and engineering. Remembering how useful my mentor was as a resource for me while I was a first-year, I did my best to provide them with guidance on class and homework struggles, studying resources, and professor interactions as well as point them toward my favorite de-stressing activities and buying them ice cream. Mostly, I was there to be a friend and a face to say that, yes, we can absolutely exceed expectations for women and minorities in STEM but that also, yes, we are human and do not need to get a 4.0 to have self-affirmation in our fields. Seeing these women pursue their passions and helping remind them of how amazing they are–and watching their success–was the best job position I could have asked for, and this was the inspiration that drove me to applying for this scholarship. Most importantly, I hope to have sparked this group of women to continue investing in future generations of women and minorities in pursuing their passions. I am excited to continue my involvement in WISE and the STEM immersion program after I return from my study abroad experience next year.