ISE junior Jessie Wilson, from Cookeville, Tennessee, discovered industrial and systems engineering at UT while attending the Governor’s School for the Sciences and Engineering as a high school student in the summer of 2019.
“I fell in love with the campus and the Volunteer spirit that all of the college students I met showed,” said Wilson, who took Professor of Practice Floyd Ostrowski’s introductory IE class that summer. “Professor Ostrowski sold the whole program to me.”
The generosity of ISE alumni has inspired her to give back while still an active member of the campus community.
“I have benefited so greatly from scholarships funded by our alumni, and it is so meaningful to see how much they invest in the next generation of IEs,” said Wilson. “The alumni and department have created a culture of giving back which has allowed me to make the most of my time at UT.”
As an ISE outreach and engagement ambassador, Wilson visits a local elementary school once a week to host an engineering club for fourth and fifth graders.
“The students that I interact with inspire me to contribute more to the greater Knoxville area,” she said. “You never know what we could say or teach them that would inspire them to be the next astrophysicist or neurosurgeon.”
Wilson applies activities she developed in the EF 327 Engineering Design in K–12 Education class, impacting engineering education with her direct action.
“I have personally gotten to see these activities implemented in in-school and after-school opportunities,” she said. “I also spent one semester doing STEM education research with Dr. Lynn Hodge.”
Wilson connects with fellow Vols as the president for the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers UT’s student chapter, which will host the organization’s mid-Atlantic regional conference in spring 2025. She is a co-founder and 2022–23 vice president of Alpha Omega Epsilon, a professional and social sorority for women and underrepresented genders in engineering and the technical sciences. It has grown from 12 to 89 members since launching in 2021.
Wilson feels her most significant academic project has been in IE 401 Facilities Planning and Material Handling.
“There’s a semester-long team project where you design a manufacturing facility from scratch,” she said. “It sounds so daunting at the beginning of the class, but you begin to see how everything you learn in IE 401 and other IE classes applies.”
Wilson is minoring in applied music, maintaining a lifelong interest. She rose to be principal oboist in the School of Music’s Wind Ensemble and the Symphony Orchestra, and has performed oboe and English horn in Oak Ridge Civic Ballet Association productions.
She plays a song of sheer gratitude for the ISE faculty’s culture of encouragement and style of personal support.
“I have felt so supported here in my time at UT and it has meant the world to find such fantastic mentors,” said Wilson. “The ISE department is so unique and special that they all go above and beyond supporting IE students. I thank Professor John Kobza for his time as department head in creating such a supportive and positive environment in the department.”
Contact
Randall Brown(865-974-0533, rbrown73@utk.edu)