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Aimee Wucherer

1x

Finalist

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Winner

General information

Hobbies & Interests

  • Environmental Science and Sustainability
  • Water Skiing
  • Flying And Aviation
  • Aerospace
  • Cars and Automotive Engineering
  • Dungeons And Dragons
  • Learning
  • History
  • Reading

Reading

  • Historical
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Mystery
  • Action
  • Academic
  • Classics

I read books multiple times a week.

Bio

I am a person driven by my curiosity and my inability to sit still. My hands are always moving, and they had a tendency to try to disassemble and then reassemble my toys when I was little. As I grew up, this turned into me helping my dad fix the car, the wall outlets, and anything else that came up. Today, I take on my own projects like building rockets that reach 10,000 feet in the air, a mini clavinet, and fixing my own car. I have always been fascinated by birds, airplanes, and how they work, leading me to study Aerospace Engineering. My life goals include designing faster and more energy efficient planes, as well as attaining a pilots license. Due to my love of aviation, I started to explore other options in the aerospace field in high school, which introduced me to rocketry during my junior year of high school. Since then, I have competed in the American Rocketry Challenge, placed 18th out of 119 with my team at the Spaceport Cup of America, gained my Level 1 Rocketry Certification, and am in the process of building a rocket for my Level 2 Rocketry Certification. Rocketry and all the people I have meet through the community has helped shape who I am today. Other Rocketeers have taught me the importance of patience, as building a rocket takes time and pain-staking attention to detail. Everything needs to be planned, well researched, and communicated in advance. Going in blind will only lead to injuries and wasting people's time. If everyone works together, the rocket will launch successfully and create great pictures!

Education

Illinois Institute of Technology

Bachelor's degree program

2022 – 2026

Majors:
  • Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical/Space Engineering

North Carolina Sci/math Dstnc

High School

2020 – 2022

Miscellaneous

Desired degree level:
Master's degree program
Majors of interest:
Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical/Space Engineering, Engineering, General, Materials Sciences
Medical school interest:
No

Career

  • Land Guide

    Consumer Services · U.S. National Whitewater Center

    Jan 2022 – Jan 2022

  • Intern

    Mechanical or Industrial Engineering · W.D. Lee & Company Inc.

    Jan 2021 – Jan 2021

  • Researcher

    Model United Nations

    Jan 2021 – Jan 2022

  • Captain

    NCSSM Rocketry Club

    Jan 2020 – Jan 2022

  • Structures Lead

    Aviation & Aerospace · Illinois Tech Rocketry

    Jan 2022 – Present

  • Mechanical Design Intern

    Aviation & Aerospace · Curtiss-Wright

    Jan 2023 – Present

Miscellaneous

Dream career field:
Aviation & Aerospace
Dream career goals:
Senior Aeronautical Design Engineer
Has nursing license:
No

Future Interests

  • Advocacy
  • Volunteering
Jacob Daniel Dumas Memorial Scholarship
Winner
One question that is always in the back of my mind as the seasons change is: what are we going to do about the environment? Already we can clearly see the effects of climate change by turning on the news. Hurricane season starts earlier each year with more ferocity; more fires are burning across the Western coast than in decades. This is just one of the reasons I want to pursue a degree in STEM. Working in STEM is about problem solving and taking the next step in technological advancement to make living in this world easier. I may not be responsible for the problems that affect our world now, but I do want to be part of the solution. As a future engineer, I can actually do something for the environment, because getting an engineering degree will give me the tools to start building the solution. Not everybody has that opportunity. I have been lucky thus far. I come from a family of multiple engineers, so I was exposed to the profession that encourages curious minds and hands. It is not unusual now, or when I was young, for me to be sitting my my dad in his workshop asking why he was doing something, like replacing brake pads, or how something worked, like a carburetor. My first interest in engineering started off with old cars and how they worked since it was common for me to go to car shows. Eventually attending car shows turned into air shows, and that's when my love for airplanes, how they worked, and flying started. One of my favorite planes is the Lockheed SR-71, an intelligence plane capable of flying over Mach 3. It looks so different from the regular commercial passenger jet, that I wanted to find out why it could still fly. Ever since learning the basics of wing design and aerodynamics, I’ve wanted to experiment with more effective plane designs. Looking through the history of planes, the variety of different designs over time is fascinating, but lately it seems like commercial airplane design has stagnated with very few new breakthroughs. Due to the apparent stagnation in the outer design of airplanes and the climate crisis, I decided that I wanted to solve a couple problems at once. My dream is to design a supersonic passenger airplane that will cut down on the time people spend in the air traveling and use less fuel, so not as many emissions are created through air travel. However, this is going to be a long process as not only do I need to design, build, and test the plane, it is likely I will have to advocate for airports to change or accommodate for an irregular airplane design. Once I established what I wanted to accomplish in the aerospace industry to myself, there is very little that will stop me from doing everything in my power to achieve my goal. Growing up in a competitive family that valued education so heavily has encouraged my drive to always complete what I said I would do. I want to be a part of the generation of STEM workers that leaves the Earth a better place than it is at the time I write this, which I hope my goal with contribute to.
Aimee Wucherer Student Profile | Bold.org