After completing her B.S in Mechanical Engineering at New Mexico Tech, recent graduate Lorena Velásquez is off to Baltimore,  beginning her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Medical Robotics at Johns Hopkins University. Her role as a project leader, student mentor, and undergraduate research assistant branching through various labs and topics throughout the department highlighted Lorena's undergraduate career.

Although Lorena describes her undergraduate experience as "Fruitful but undeniably challenging," her reputation for integrity, passion for her work, and dedication to her peers helped her develop the tools she needed to become a well-rounded engineer.

As an undergraduate, Lorena spent her summers working as a student research assistant at LANSCE, the particle accelerator at Los Alamos National Laboratory. There, her work focussed on high voltage electronic systems, magnetics, and pulsed power. Although these topics were starkly different from her interests, working at LANSCE allowed her to develop skills in circuits and electricity.  Last summer, she took a hiatus from Los Alamos. She used her electronic skillset as a National Science Foundation Undergraduate Researcher at Johns Hopkins, working on the Robotic System for Mosquito Dissection, a robot designed to harvest mosquito salivary glands to mass-produce malaria vaccines.

At New Mexico Tech, Lorena led the 2020 Sandia Capstone Design team, which designed and fabricated an integrated sensing device to monitor and transmit environmental conditions of sensitive material during transit for Sandia National Laboratory. She led the software and electronics subgroup on the Steinhoff Prosthetic Initiative Design team, worked on trace explosive detection in the Shock and Gas Dynamics Laboratory, and triple axis system development for additive manufacturing in the Advanced Computational Metallurgy Laboratory.

In addition to her research, Lorena was a teaching assistant for the introductory mechanical engineering course for two years. She dedicated time with her team to continuously improving the quality of the course and publishing papers to showcase the growth in student retention rates and comprehensive skill development within the course through the American Society of Engineering Educators (ASEE)  each year. This year’s paper, “Delivering Hands-On Introductory Design Experiences in a Hybrid Curriculum” took second place at the ASEE Gulf conference.

At Johns Hopkins, Lorena's research will focus on implementing neurological control systems and haptic feedback in upper limb prostheses. She entered her Ph.D. program as both an LCSR (Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Medical Robotics) Distinguished Ph.D. Fellow and a WSE (Whiting School of Engineering) Dean's Fellow. These fellowships provide additional funding and rotational research opportunities for the duration of the Ph.D. program. Lorena attributes much of her success to the exposure to a variety of engineering projects and dynamic workspaces she encountered as an undergraduate.

Lorena's advice to her fellow techies is, "Find what you're passionate about and go for it, get involved whenever you can, ask questions, and never underestimate yourself." There is something special about New Mexico Tech's ability to provide students with a challenging but glorious opportunity for hands-on involvement.  Diving into something new can be daunting, but you never know what experience might just give you the upper hand.