Digital cover of the Winter 2018-19 Virginia Tech Engineer magazine.

Behind the Winter 2018/19 edition of Virginia Tech Engineer

Erica Corder On Photography, On Videography, On Work, On Writing

Following the launch of the award-winning digital Virginia Tech Engineer back in winter of 2017, our team began thinking about what was next. We knew we wanted to utilize the digital space more, but that we also wanted to produce a print magazine. When you have three full-time staff in the College (myself, our director of communications, and our web/digital …

Screenshot of a cover image for a story in a digital magazine. Image is of Julia Ross smiling for a photo in a lab setting.

Behind the winter 2017 launch of Virginia Tech Engineer

Erica Corder On Photography, On Videography, On Work, On Writing

In winter 2017, I led the launch of the Virginia Tech College of Engineering’s premier digital magazine, Virginia Tech Engineer. It was no easy feat with a two month timeline, but here’s the behind-the-scenes work that went into it: PUTTING TOGETHER CONTENT In total, I wrote eight of the 12 stories for the magazine (including the feature story on the …

Screenshot of photo of a woman stands in front of a window. Behind her stand tall buildings with large glass windows in a modern cityscape. The words "The woman bringing Virginia Tech's power electronics to D.C." are written over the image.

The woman bringing Virginia Tech’s power electronics to D.C. (VT Engineer Magazine)

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Electrical engineering professor Dushan Boroyevich made a point of sitting next to Christina DiMarino during a dinner in spring 2012. As the then co-director of the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES), Boroyevich was on a recruitment mission. He saw promise in DiMarino, who’d been offered a competitive Webber Fellowship to study at Virginia Tech. There was only one problem: …

Screenshot of a cover image for a story in a digital magazine. In the old photo, Joe Ware gives a speech at a podium while wearing a hat that reads "Ware Lab."

The little-known backstory of one of Virginia Tech’s most popular labs (VT Engineer Magazine)

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Ask any Virginia Tech engineering student about the Joseph F. Ware Jr. Advanced Engineering Laboratory, and odds are they’ve stepped foot in it. Arguably the most popular lab on campus and hallmark of the Virginia Tech undergraduate engineering experience, the Ware Lab is a 10,000-square-foot facility, split into nearly a dozen bays full of tools, materials, and student design projects. It’s …

Seven students pose with a Hyperloop pod.

Virginia Tech Hyperloop team ventures to SpaceX for global competition (VT News, College of Engineering)

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Eleven Virginia Tech undergraduate engineering students ventured to SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, for the innovative aerospace company’s Hyperloop Pod Competition II, the second round of the international competition. After landing in Los Angeles on Aug. 19, the Hyperloop at Virginia Tech team spent the week modifying and integrating the systems on their pod, called the V17, and completing safety tests. …

Screenshot of an image of a drone hovering above corn stalks. The words "The future of farming" appear below.

The future of farming (VT Engineer Magazine)

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The week that would change Terrie Webb’s life is one she doesn’t remember. In that week, the then-57-year-old orthodontist clinic admin from Prince George County, Virginia, was rushed from a doctor’s appointment about her swollen, purple hand straight into emergency surgery. Where her memory picks back up, she recalls being informed she’d suffered a blood clot that traveled to her …

Screencap of a photo displaying a shaker table close up. The words "Shaking up a lab" are written over top of the image.

Shaking up a lab (VT Engineer Magazine)

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When you buy a mobile phone, you might not think about how far it’s traveled to get to your pocket. You might think even less about the vibrational forces that acted upon it during its journey to you. But in the Advanced Vibrations and Acoustics Lab (AVAL), founded and directed by mechanical engineering professor Pablo Tarazaga, researchers are poised to …

Screenshot of a photo in which two men pose in front of solar panels in a field. The words "The transformers" are written on top of the image.

The transformers (VT Engineer Magazine)

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Rob Wallace ’00 and Walter Barnes ’00 first met the summer before their freshman year at Virginia Tech, in 1996. Ask them to tell you how, and they both laugh. “He used to rollerblade,” Barnes says. “I still rollerblade,” Wallace interjects. “I went rollerblading last night.” “He still rollerblades,” Barnes says, laughing. “Which I thought was very odd.” That first …

Screenshot of a cover image featuring Joe May and the title, which reads "Gift creates a pathway for first generation engineering students."

Gift creates a pathway for first generation engineering students (VT Engineer Magazine)

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When electrical engineering alumnus Joe T. May ’62 was in high school, he says he wasn’t exactly on a path to success. After a suspension for smoking cigarettes — something that today, May said, “wouldn’t raise an eyebrow,” but did then in the small Mennonite community he lived in — May’s principal allowed him to graduate only if he promised …