For many years, teachers and counselors wanted to simply define me as the daughter of an incarcerated father. The girl whose only future is to follow in her father’s degenerate footsteps. Someone whose parent’s wrongdoing would always overshadow any accomplishments and work ethic. The high school principals shook their heads at the news anchors stalking my high school in an attempt to catch my mom picking me up in the car rider line. The guidance counselors scoffed at the idea that a first-generation female could never make it in engineering. It felt as if I was drowning in a sea of whispers, but I was determined to prove them wrong. College rescued me from that suffocating sea. It was the first time I felt that I had potential. The number of opportunities and experiences I had available filled me with hope, and I wasted no time in pursuing my future in research. I started working in a lab studying La Crosse encephalitis, a virus plaguing Appalachian children. I dived headfirst into using geospatial technologies to analyze the geographies and waters where virus-laden mosquitoes thrived in. I used that research to go out and teach the community how to protect their families by stopping the mosquitoes at their source. I always saw science and math as abstract, intangible things, but this research opened my eyes to the capabilities engineering had to help marginalized communities. After this, I quickly fell in love with the idea of being an engineering professor. I envisioned myself using research to make the world a better place for future generations and becoming a professor who could show my students that you can overcome the world’s expectations and whispers. I continued to ignore those who judged me not by my own merits, but by my family’s failures, and excelled by performing research, presenting at conferences, winning awards, being a leader in several organizations, and securing multiple engineering internships with environmental organizations such as the NRCS and Esri. This passion led me to become Vice President for the entire Southeastern Region of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers where I am spearheading an outreach campaign to reunify all the region’s chapters after a disconnection formed due to the pandemic years. I have also used my position as President of UTK’s ASABE chapter and Treasurer of UTK’s Society of Women Engineers to reunify the rift biosystems students with our fellow engineering majors and promote the importance of biosystems engineering to the region as a whole. Though it is a large task, graduate school seems to be a shadow of the obstacles I’ve faced. I am looking forward to using my degree to give back to my community and even be able to help diversify engineering as a female, first-generation student. I’ve already begun pursuing my dream of pouring back into future engineers through an after-school program for at-risk students where I teach them about engineering and show them that they can impact the world. I am excited to do even more during graduate school and in the future when I become an engineering professor.

The day the news broke was the day that the whispers started. Every channel had my dad’s face plastered on it. As the spitting image of my father, it didn’t take long for people to realize it was my father who would be sent to a prison hundreds of miles away. Everyone seemed to know everything. The underclassmen gossiped about how the police set up surveillance around our house and how the neighbors were paid to gather intel on us. The administration shook their heads at the news anchors stalking my high school in an attempt to catch my mom picking me up in the car rider line. The guidance counselors turned a blind eye to me and refused to help me- neither mentally nor educationally. It felt as if I was drowning in a sea of whispers. But then my brother came home from school with tears plastered on his face. He couldn’t handle the whispers anymore. It snapped me out of my daze. From that moment on, I knew I had to stand strong. I had to be a role model for him. I turned my anger and pain into my drive. I knew that if I could overcome my father’s absence then I could overcome anything. I began applying to college. The guidance counselors denied me guidance, so I embarked on the journey alone. The journey to be the first in my family to graduate college. I fell in love with the idea of being a woman engineer. I wanted to be able to benefit the whole of society in a multitude of ways, through the application of safer, cleaner, and more efficient foundations. Though society had lost hope in me, I hadn’t lost hope in it. I envisioned myself making the world a better place for future generations and being a source of proof that others like me could overcome the world’s expectations and whispers. From the very first day at my university, I became involved in anything and everything I could. I continued to ignore those who judged me not by my own merits, but by my family’s failures, and excelled by taking advanced courses, performing research, presenting at conferences, winning awards, being a leader in multiple organizations, and securing internships. Now that I’m only a year and a half away from securing a degree in Biosystems Engineering, I am one step closer to my vision. I’m already working towards achieving a career in this field through my internship work. I have assisted a multitude of our nation’s rural communities in managing their land’s resources and helped our government effectively serve its constituents in underserved areas. It’s been so fulfilling to apply my textbook knowledge from my engineering classes to real-world applications, and I am deeply looking forward to continuing to do so. I’ve also begun pouring into the next generation of engineers. I co-founded an after-school program for at-risk elementary school students where I teach them about engineering and show them that they can impact the world. I will continue to persevere through college and will make the world a better place. Though it is a large task, graduation seems to be a shadow of the obstacles I once faced. I am looking forward to using my degree to give back to my community and even be able to help diversify engineering as a female, first-generation student. I have already begun pouring back into future generations and I am excited to do even more after graduation. I will use my position to be an encouragement to others that they can overcome hardships as well.

Everyone needs and appreciates good maps. Maps provide a critical context because they are both analytical and artistic. Maps carry a universal appeal and offer clarity and shape to the world. They enable you to discover and interpret patterns and share your data. What used to be a completely paper and navigational based product has blossomed into a major online mapping revolution underway, and the implications of this are far-reaching. Esri launched ArcGIS Online in 2012 and was correctly labeled as a revolution in GIS as opposed to an evolution of GIS. ArcGIS Online was an amazing invention that would introduce thousands of students to spatial analysis and open their minds to pursuing a future in STEM. I know it opened mine. I always thought that I was a horrible fit for a STEM career. I never excelled in math and science. I thought that immediately ruled out A STEM career for me until I was placed in a GIS elective my senior year of high school. In that class, I was introduced to ArcGIS online and coding. This completely transformed the way I learned by enabling me to discover, use, make, and share maps and apps built on a foundation of critical thinking and spatial analyses. I always saw science and math as some abstract, intangible thing but ArcGIS Online made me see that it wasn’t. GIS and coding came so naturally to me, and I learned that I could use them as a tool to benefit both my community and the environment. I knew I had to find a career in it. That’s what led me to a degree in Biosystems Engineering. Biosystems engineers work to ensure our communities have safe and plentiful food to eat, pure water to drink, clean fuel and energy sources, and a safe, healthy environment in which to live. I fell in love with the fact that they are constantly using geospatial technologies to improve the environment we live in and interact with every day. For me, biosystems was the perfect intersection of STEM and the humanities. I’m already working towards achieving a career in this field through my work as an intern for the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Over the past two summers, I’ve learned how to survey land in a variety of different ways, use GIS and Civil 3D to design conservation projects, and help inspect those finished conservation designs when they are completed. I have assisted a multitude of our nation’s farmers in managing their land’s resources and helped our government effectively serve its constituents in underserved, rural areas. It’s been so fulfilling to apply my textbook knowledge from my engineering classes to real-world applications, and I am deeply looking forward to continuing to do so. A scholarship from Dynamic Edge will help me to continue to achieve and become the first person in my family to graduate college. I am already halfway towards achieving the success of graduation and have already secured a multi-semester internship with job conversion after graduation. I’ll even be able to help diversify the engineering field, as the career sector is severely lacking in women and members of the LGBTQ+ community. I will use my position to be an encouragement to others that they can overcome hardships as well. I see a future in being able to manage practices that protect this country’s farm and natural lands, minimize soil erosion, conserve water resources, and produce safer machinery systems with lower environmental impact.