Science and Engineering Scholarships and Fellowships Blog

Heather Beem, mechanical engineering major, Oklahoma State University. Beem and Larry Hoberock, professor and head of OSU’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, are pictured with a silverware sorting prototype she helped design and build in the school’s Robotics Laboratory. OSU engineering student receives $232,000 fellowship

She will enroll at MIT in the fall, after traveling to China this summer to see Olympic venues, Three Gorges Dam and other modern marvels as part of a study abroad short-course for OSU engineering students, and serving a summer research internship at NASA Ames Academy in California.

“Oklahoma State University is extremely proud of Heather,” said OSU President Burns Hargis. “The best representation of the ideals of OSU is our outstanding students, and Heather is a remarkable example.
…
“My dad is an aquatic biologist, and when I was growing up, he’d take me tromping through the streams of Oklahoma to take measurements and look at fish,” Beem said. “I’ve had an interest in that for a while now, and the ocean is a huge frontier with lots of things to discover.”

Beem, who graduated from Norman North High School in 2003 at age 15, discovered engineering through an Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education summer academy. “I really enjoyed learning how to tackle interesting problems in my high school physics class,” Beem said. “I also liked building things, and then I participated in one of those free summer academies after my senior year.”
…
During a tour of the National Taipei University of Technology, Beem, who is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and German, met and convinced researchers to hire her for an internship. “I was originally just going to visit, but they were working on a bioengineering application using the antibacterial properties of silver in wound dressings, and I thought it was really interesting,” Beem said.

“They want to use nano-silver particles and, instead of a bandage you have to replace all the time, make a dressing that releases silver at a controlled rate,” she said. “It’s cleaner and much more effective than a bandage you have to constantly rip out and replace.” The work led to the first of several technical papers on which Beem has been principal author or co-author.
…
In addition to serving as structures group leader for the OSU team that won the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Student Design/Build/Fly Competition in April, Beem was a member of a student group that designed and built a prototype, inflatable wing aircraft for NASA exploration of Mars. She considers the experiences her most memorable as an OSU engineering student.

“Being involved with Dr. (Jamey) Jacob’s Mars plane team, seeing the project all the way from concept to completion, and test launching it from a weather balloon 100,000 feet in the air was really exciting. At that point, I thought, ‘I’m really going to enjoy working with technology like this,’” Beem said. “The Design/Build/Fly was also a great experience, and winning first place made us all feel great.”

Related: Oklahoma State Biosystems Engineering Student Wins NSF GRF - Arizona State Students Receive NSF Fellowship