The Engineering Communication Podcast

In our first episode of Season 2 of The Engineering Communication Podcast, we talk with Laura Demetrion, who offers a lot of insights into writing for your audience. Formerly a Lead Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, Laura now works as an Operations Lead at Carbon A List (although she hadn't yet started her new job when we recorded the podcast episode). She has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to helping engineers communicate their research to various audiences, so this is one episode you won’t want to miss.

In this episode of The Engineering Podcast, we talk with Megan Bennett, a Virginia Tech Bradley Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering graduate who is now a Space Frontier Foundation Board Member and an Advanced Electrical Engineer at Platform Aerospace. Tune in to learn how her team prepared an aircraft for a flight around the Arctic Circle (spoiler: it required a lot of clear communication and effective writing). Alexander Leonessa and the MIT Media Lab also get a few shout outs in this episode!

The Engineering Communication Podcast is going on a summer hiatus, so this will be our last episode until September 2023, so check back then for more conversations about engineering communication.

In this week's episode of The Engineering Communication Podcast, Matthew talks with Isaac Pressgrove, a PhD student in Virginia Tech's Mechanical Engineering department. Tune in to hear hear what motivated Isaac to shift from an engineering role at General Motors to a graduate student role at VT (and the communication shift that was required with that change!).

On this episode of The Engineering Communication Podcast, we talk to Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering alumna Madeline Potts about her work in #engineering #sales at Trane. Sales and engineering may seem like unrelated fields, but they're closer than we might think (and both require A LOT of communication)! To hear how she got from one field to the other, and why she loves her position as a Systems Account Manager, give this episode a listen.

In the second episode of our start-up series, David Henry, Chief Operating Officer & Co-Founder of Card Isle, joins us to talk about his path from engineering to entrepreneurship, the benefits of starting out small when it comes to a new business, and how his company started because he was "just chasing an interesting problem." This episode was a hard one to edit because of the great advice that David offers--be sure to carve out some time for this one.

This episode of The Engineering Communication Podcast is the first of a two-part series on engineering start-ups. Our guest today is Scott Gong, who, by day, is a Project Design Engineer at ExxonMobil, and, by night, is owner and founder of Scott Gong Tutoring, a tutoring company that provides mentorship to engineering students at all levels of their education. If you’re an engineer and interested in start-up, tutoring, or are just really curious about how Scott juggles everything, this is the episode for you!

In this episode of The Engineering Communication Podcast, we talk with Dr. David Gray, a Collegiate Assistant Professor and Assistant Department Head for Undergraduate Programs in Virginia Tech's Engineering Education program (those are some titles!). Dr. Gray talks about industry, graduate school, and interdisciplinary work in this episode, and, as a fun fact, he was referred to us by several of his mentees, which is a sure sign that this episode is worth a listen!

This isn’t your typical Engineering Communication Podcast episode! Rather, this is a brief announcement or pitch about the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative in Southwest Virginia and the amazing work they’re doing in interdisciplinary research and community outreach.

We’re back and we have a great episode to start off the new semester! In this episode of The Engineering Communication Podcast, Darrell Roberts talks to us about all things nuclear, or at least as it pertains to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. You won’t want to miss this episode—it’s chock full of advice for both engineering students and professionals who are, or will be, navigating the career field. You’ll also learn how Darrell planned to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s Thriller!

In Episode 4 of The Engineering Communication Podcast, Matthew Wood interviews Dr. Pinar Acar, an Assistant Professor in Virginia Tech’s Mechanical Engineering Department, who was the recipient of the 2021 Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award (congratulations, Dr. Acar!). Dr. Acar offers graduate school advice, discusses aerospace materials and structure, and presents tips for preparing engineering content for a public audience—this episode covers a lot of ground that you won’t want to miss!