Jadzia Graves turns on the grinding and polishing machine to prepare the samples for her projects.
“I’m individually comparing how the micro structures look,” Graves said.
She takes samples of different materials, looking at them under a microscope, and compares their properties through transformations. She is working with two different samples. One is an aluminum-based material with several elements combined. The other is an iron-based material.
Graves went to the Mineral Metals and Materials Society Conference in San Antonio, Texas March 11 to present her research through a poster she’s made to overview her work. As individuals travel between lectures in the conference, they had the opportunity to stop and view Graves’ research and judges gave out awards at the end of the day.
“I didn’t ever really consider doing anything that wasn’t in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics),” Graves said. “In my physics class in seventh grade, we were told to find a STEM career where we would want to work. I said, ‘you know what sounds really awesome is mechanical engineering’ and ever since the seventh grade I wanted to be a mechanical engineer.”
While Graves said she loves engineering, entering a field known for being primarily male has its drawbacks.
Brianna Finnegan | Argonaut
Jadzia Graves preparing her samples using the grinding and polishing machine.
“It’s not that women are discouraged from doing it, it’s that they’re not encouraged,” Graves said. “Guys will be just okay at math, decent at science and like engines and everyone will say ‘you should be an engineer’. While women have to really want it — I’ve never heard of a woman who just casually chose engineering.”
Graves also explained that once women are in the field, it’s easy to get discouraged.
“You have to put yourself into this situation that is uncomfortable, when you’re one of three women in the room and there’s eighty guys,” Graves said.
Being a mechanical engineering student, Graves said she sees the disparity between men and women in the engineering field even more so than other disciplines.
“Mechanical engineering has the most men and the least women. Other engineering disciplines are more even,” Graves said.
While being a woman in the engineering field isn’t easy, Graves encourages women to enter the field.
“Just try,” Graves said. “Put yourself into situations you didn’t think you would enjoy being in, put yourself out there, try new things. For women going into engineering, yeah, it’s difficult, but there’s a lot of really good guys in engineering and there’s a lot of people who want to be really helpful.”
Graves mentioned several women within the engineering field, both students and professionals, that she feels inspire her the most because they show her it is okay to struggle and okay if she fails.
Graves is a double major in mechanical engineering and materials engineering. She said she wants to use her degrees to work as an aerospace or astronautical engineer for NASA, which would involve developing aircraft and spacecraft. Graves already has an internship lined up with NASA for the summer.
“You take a piece of metal and looking at it under a microscope plus deforming it in a couple of different ways will tell you all the properties, that as a mechanical engineer I can then use to design something,” Graves said.
Engineering it isn’t just a subject Graves studies, but it influences her life in a big way. She works a tutor with Think Tank Tutors through the College of Engineering. Graves is also a member of four clubs on campus.
She is the Outreach Chair for the Society of Women Engineers, which introduces high school girls to the College of Engineering on the University of Idaho campus.
She serves as the Imaging Team lead—gathering images and video from their work—for the Vandal Atmospheric Science Team, a NASA affiliated organization that sends objects of varying weights up to 10,000 feet in the air to gather data.Graves is also a part of Materials Advantage, a materials science and engineering club, and the Grand Challenge Scholars program, a group that focuses on helping students with research projects.
“Everyone makes mistakes, nobody is perfect. Engineering is difficult but somehow we have fun anyways,” said Graves. “It is OK to fail you just have to get yourself back up and learn from your mistakes.”
Brianna Finnegan can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @BriannaFinneg8