Nathan Denning is a civil engineering student and research assistant in the College of Engineering.
Growing up in a military family, I was fortunate to live in and experience multiple places across the country, ranging from the suburbs of large cities to the island of Kodiak, Alaska, a community entirely powered by renewable energy. Spending time in such vastly different places opened my eyes to many of the world's environmental challenges due to urbanization. This initially sparked my motivation to pursue a career in creating a more resilient, and energy-efficient world through engineering.
Back in high school, one major opportunity at Michigan State made my college decision easy: the Professorial Assistantship program through MSU’s Honors College. I was simply amazed that I would have the opportunity to conduct research starting in my first semester of college with no prior experience. With this program, I was matched with Dr. Qingxu “Bill” Jin from the College of Engineering, and I have taken part in some of the most advanced concrete materials research in the nation for the past two years.
Concrete is the second most used resource in the world behind water, and it makes up approximately 8% of global CO2 production. To help mitigate this, Dr. Jin’s Resilient, Intelligent, Sustainable, and Energy-Efficient Materials Lab creates bendable concrete that is more durable and environmentally friendly than traditional concrete. I was astounded when I saw bendable concrete for the first time, and I was eager to explore its potential.
Over the last two years with the RISE group, I’ve had the opportunity to contribute to innovative projects and gain hands-on experience with laboratory work, as well as build presentation skills. For example, I earned a NASA fellowship through the Michigan Space Grant Consortium, where I helped create bendable MoonCrete and MarsCrete for future construction on the Moon and Mars. I performed two poster presentations on this project, with one at an MSGC conference, and the other through MSU’s Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Program.
These experiences prepared me well to take a major leap as a researcher this past summer: the Department of Energy’s Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship. I was incredibly excited about this opportunity, as I had wanted to be involved with the Department of Energy since high school, and the MLEF program is one of the most competitive STEM internships in the country.
See the entire Student View by Nathan Denning at MSUToday.
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