Women in MechSE Spotlight: Diana Pham on exploring all the niches and opportunities at Illinois

Illinois is all about exploring your options as a student—and your life beyond it. Diana Pham is a senior in mechanical engineering, earning a minor from the Hoeft Technology and Management Program, a joint program with Gies College of Business and The Grainger College of Engineering. Although she began as an engineering undeclared student, she realized her passion for mechanical engineering after her experience in Academic Redshirt in Science and Engineering (ARISE), a community for students in engineering undeclared looking for a fitting discipline.  

Written by Helen Chang

During her time at Illinois, Diana was involved on the Krannert Center Board, continuing her interest and passion in performance arts. She also served as an engineering tour guide in the Engineering Student Admissions Representatives (ESTARs) program.

“I loved ESTARs,” Diana said. “I got to know everything about the buildings, saw new people and met students in different engineering majors.” In January 2022, she completed a co-op at Tesla as a Fastener Test Engineer intern.

“Tesla helped me realize how much I liked testing engineering,” Diana said. “It opened a lot of interests for me to pursue. The ‘see what happens’ mindset was so fun!”

She later continued her internship journey at Shure Inc., where she worked as a Product Validation and Reliability Engineering intern. She explained how testing engineers had the perfect blend of field research and office work. The testing procedure development helped her increase her abilities to understand modes of failure and design for the right task.

As a student within the prestigious Hoeft Technology and Management Program, she completed her capstone with Caterpillar, developing a device to acoustically monitor welding using artificial intelligence. She also competed in the International Business Plan Competition in Hong Kong in January 2024, and flew to Seattle to tour Boeing’s manufacturing plant and learn about the technology surrounding airplane manufacturing.

In November 2023, Diana joined a research lab that changed the trajectory of her career. “Joining Dr. Kelly Powderly’s lab made me realize I want to continue to graduate school,” she said. “Beckman Research had a lot of collaborations between different departments and colleges, so I got to contribute a lot of technical skills.” Her most recent research was in micro and nanorobotics, focused on micro automation to deposit an aqueous solution into a Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) grid.

“I would love to see more mentor and mentee pairings within Grainger majors,” Diana said. “I loved Women in MechSE [WIM] because it let us do exactly that!” She also hopes to see even more female MechSE professors, as well as more community—even when MechSE grows as the years go on.

Outside of engineering, Diana enjoys hiking and the outdoors. As a member of the Outdoor Club, she traveled to Utah to camp. She also enjoys watching performances at the university’s Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

When asked about tips she would give to prospective and current students, Diana said she would advise people “not to discount themselves. Sometimes I let myself be rejected—you will never know if you don’t do it,” she said. “College is the time to try. Meet new people, be exposed to new things! Go with the flow, and it’ll end up where it’s meant to go.”

Diana also advises students to take advantage of resources and shares the sentiment that has followed her for the past four years. “Dean Favila, of the ARISE program, said, ‘At Illinois, we make world class engineers.’ In senior year, it feels truer than ever,” Diana said. “We get to see people all over the world and make connections in every niche of the globe. We are truly world class.”

Research image, above:  Diana was one of seven winners of the 2024 Beckman Institute Research Image Contest. Her image, titled "Visualizing the Unseen," was captured with a 100-times-magnification microscope in the MNMS cleanroom in Lu MEB.