Meet Mallory Moran—Featured Student for February

Where are you from? Greensboro, North Carolina What school do you go to? What year are you? Super-Senior at North Carolina State University Do you hold any positions in your AIChE chapter or with AIChE nationally? I am VP of Industry Relations for our student chapter this academic year. I have also served as Professional Development chair in the past. Describe an event in your chapter that you are most proud to have been involved with. I have combined my roles in AIChE with my experience as an ambassador for the university's Career Development Center and put on presentations and workshops for our members to help them develop killer resumes and gain interview skills. What are your plans after graduation? In what field are you most interested in having an impact? After my experiences co-oping, I know I would like to work as a process or production engineer in one of the chemical processing industries, and use my green chemistry and engineering concentration to focus on sustainability and efficiency projects. How do you blow off steam and keep your sanity between classes, homework, and projects? I'm a pretty craftsy person and get really inspired by DIY projects I find on Pinterest. During the school year I'll do some smaller craft projects on the weekends, like paint personalized coffee mugs to give my friends for Christmas. I take on some bigger projects when I'm not in school. My grandpa helped me build and decorate my own cornhole boards over the summer, and my mom helped me make a quilt out of five years of old NC State T-shirts as part of my Christmas present. Which of your undergraduate classes have you most enjoyed? I really enjoyed my separations class. Given, I could have gone without 8am quizzes twice a week and four hour exams, but I enjoyed the subject, especially with regards to distillation. It really resonated with me since during my co-op I had worked in a tall oil refinery. I had practical experience with distillation to back up what I was learning in the classroom. Outside of ChE, I took an online personal finance course that I feel is going to be the most helpful non-engineering class I have had when I get out into the real world. We learned about investing, real estate, insurance, credit, and retirement savings. One day I'll need to know about all of those things!



How did you decide to pursue a degree in ChE? Like most everyone will say, I really enjoyed my math and science classes in high school, but especially chemistry. I came into the university as "engineering-undecided," but after doing some research on the types of careers available to ChE's, the problems they deal with, and had a "rocking chair chat" with the department's undergraduate studies director, I was sold.

What is the best kept secret on your campus? When I first started at State, the benefits of Centennial Campus were only known by the handful of engineering students whose majors had already made the transition from the crowded main campus to the new and developing engineering-only campus. For my first three years, Centennial was a very quiet place, with lots of study areas and a couple coffee shops that were generally quiet and peaceful when compared to main campus. Now, with an additional classroom building that houses mechanical and aerospace engineering, campus-living run apartments, a dining hall, and a state of the art library, Centennial isn't much of a secret anymore. It's still a great place to learn, and you can always escape the hustle and bustle in the AIChE-owned engineering lounge. What are you most looking forward to after graduation? Having free time on nights and weekends! It's a bit more time for relaxing, but it's also more time I can spend on some of those bigger craft and DIY projects I enjoy. I also really enjoy water sports, particularly kayaking and paddleboarding. I hope to end up somewhere near the water after graduation so I can spend warm weekends outdoors. What will you be most saddened to leave behind at school when you move on? Free student tickets to varsity sporting events, particularly football and basketball! Do you have any advice to incoming students and underclassmen ChEs around the world? When getting into your upper classmen ChE classes, it's easy to absorb yourself into your circle of engineering friends and spend most of your time either doing homework or talking about homework. Make sure you spend some time with your friends outside of your study-buddy group. Most of my friends from my first two years of college are non-engineering majors, and when I'm getting overwhelmed with schoolwork it's nice to hang out with some people who won't remind you about an upcoming thermo exam or next week's killer unit ops report. What's your first thought when you wake up in the morning? Ok, what time do I really have to be out of bed to make it to class on time? The answer is usually "in another half hour or so." If your initials (first/last or first/middle/last) stood for something other than your name, what would it be? Meticulously Methodical Magic--yes, my parents were really creative and gave me all M initials. How would you like to be involved with AIChE after graduation? I would like to join the local professional chapter in whatever area I end up after graduation, and also participate in the YPC. You can contact Mallory through her LinkedIn profile.

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