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A Conversation with President May

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On Thursday, September 28th, Maddy (‘27) and Quinn (‘27) sat down with Olin’s newly appointed president, R. May Lee. Despite it only being the 9th business day of May’s new role, she had plenty to say and share about herself and how she’s approaching new horizons with Olin.

Quinn: 

Can you tell us about yourself, what you like to do for fun, and why you came to Olin?

May: 

I’ve been around for so long, it’s hard to know where to start. So I will start with the last of your questions, which is what I like to do for fun. I love to hike and be outside, and I’m excited to explore this whole area. There seem to be a lot of trails, and I hear Parcel B is excellent for bird watching. I love to read, knit, be with my family—although I don’t love arguing with them about what we should watch on Netflix, but that’s part of being a family!

I came to Olin because I heard so much about the innovation in engineering education that it’s been doing for the last 25 years. In Shanghai, as a dean, I sent some of my faculty from the School of Entrepreneurship and Management to Babson. I wandered over and learned about what Olin was doing for engineering faculty. I went back to Shanghai and told my fellow deans, “You really need to send your faculty to summer boot camp at Olin.” And it turns out that a few years later, they did. I was inspired by the idea that somebody would actually start a new college focused on improving engineering education. That obviously resonates with my own history, having been the person who led the team to start NYU Shanghai, and then being part of the inaugural team at Shanghai Tech. So I love the idea of folks in higher ed trying to do something new and different, that’s focused really on the students. And when this opportunity came up, I was just blown away by the ethos and sense of culture. I thought, “Oh, okay, this feels like a good fit.”

Maddy: 

You touched on some of your work with Shanghai, but we also know that you’re coming from RPI as Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for Institutional Impact. What aspects of this work are you excited to carry with you to Olin, and how do you see your presidency at Olin as unique from that? 

May: 

One of the things that struck me over the summer as I was transitioning out of RPI and started meeting people at Olin: I realized I was going from the oldest engineering school in the country to the newest. Depending on your perspective, one funny or not funny similarity is the maintenance issues. As a 200-year old institution, RPI is constantly replacing pipes and walkways. Imagine my surprise when I received the email update about the big trench. I saw the pictures of the pipes in the parking lot and I thought, “Oh, this must be my RPI email.” And I looked at it and realized, “Oh, no, that’s actually happening at Olin too!” Maybe it feels like a non-material kind of similarity, but to me, I found it ironic that the 200-year-old and the 25-year-old institutions were wrestling with very similar things. My work at RPI was unusual in that I created a new position focused on strategy.  That was possible because I had a great relationship with the president who understood the importance of strategy and focus. And when you’re looking at a 200-year-old institution, you have a lot of DNA to work with. He pledged to start a brand new strategic planning process. I joined him to do that, and it gave me an opportunity to really introduce a whole new process of dialogue with the community. These are things that you’re really familiar with at Olin, but were really new to RPI. It’s a much bigger place, so there were more people to talk to and more iteration. Over the course of two and a half years, we managed to put together a terrific ten-year vision and three-to-five-year plan under his leadership. To some extent, I think that task also needs to be done here at Olin. You know, Olin was formed 25 years ago and we had a sort of infancy with a partner class and the first-years in the Class of 2006. Extending that metaphor, in preschool and toddlerhood, we were getting the school up and running while being innovative and amazing. Now it’s like we’re in middle school, right? The school’s been up and running long enough that we have to replace the pipes. And we need to think about, “Okay, what do we want to be for the next 25 years?” I know that we have Engineering for Everyone and CALL, which is fantastic. I hope we can refine and focus our efforts a bit across campus as to what we want to spend the next five years working towards. So in that sense, there’s a clear carryover from the work I was doing. I think the difference is maybe I won’t be the person doing all of that work, but I’ll have a team of great faculty, staff, and students. I’m hoping that I can sit in the dining hall, I can go to DesNat, I can be in the Shop, we can have informal conversations and do a bunch of those things with all the members of the community. 

Quinn: 

You talked a little bit about this, but Olin has had a lot of growing pains as the college is trying to find its footing and identity in the higher education space. How do you approach the tensions that come up when an institution tries to change its infrastructure and culture while maintaining the trust that’s necessary throughout this process with the community and the constituency of the college?

May: 

Somebody wise once said that you can only move at the speed of trust, and sometimes you have to go slow to go fast. People have asked me the same question in various forms—”What dramatic change are you going to make? What plans do you have?” My answer is that I don’t know. I’ve only been here for eight days. I have the data points that I’ve been able to accrue over eight days of these kinds of conversations. What I’m really hoping to do is ask a lot of dramatic questions and engage in a lot of active listening to get more data and to start to connect the dots and hear what people care about and what’s really core to the essence of Olin. I think it’s gonna take us some time to actually get to the place that you’re referring to. And I have to say that I’m really pleased that you have identified that getting to the essence of Olin’s identity feels like a challenge at the moment, because I think that’s one of the questions I’d like to answer with everybody. 

Maddy: 

There are, as you mentioned, a lot of things that are unique to Olin and they can also often be fun and quirky. What are some favorite weird Olin things that you’ve noticed since you’ve been here? 

May: 

You mean other than the avalanche of post-its that surround me starting with my front door? I walked up and said, “Oh, look, there’s Post-its covering my door that spell Olin, that’s cool.” I think that’s how this whole place feels to me. I’ll give you one example. I don’t know that it’s weird and quirky, but it did make me feel very welcome. When I first used the term co-creation at RPI, everyone looked at me with befuddled stares. And they’re really smart people, but that’s not the realm within which they operate. I’ve come from that world, but when I said it in my conversation with the search committee for Olin, everybody’s face lit up and I said, “Oh, this must be the place where I belong, these are my kind of peeps.” So it’s not weird and quirky so much as a pleasant surprise to actually enter a community where people were actively engaged in the practice of really ideating, prototyping, learning, trying again. I think that feels like so much a part of what Olin is about. And that is weird and quirky for a higher education institution, right? That’s not something that’s in the muscle memory of many other places. 

Quinn: 

Something that really struck me when I got to Olin was the difference in power structure with faculty and students. I mean, we talk about flipped classrooms all the time, but it’s really a flipped institution. Like professors will come and sit down in the dining hall and eat lunch with us. That wouldn’t happen at most other institutions that I’ve been at. Was that surprising and appealing for you? 

May: 

It’s definitely appealing. I was in the dining hall yesterday, and I’m hoping to be in the dining hall at least once a week for lunch. It does happen in other places, but I don’t think it happens in the same way. I think there is a kind of relationship that the faculty hope to create with the students, likely because of our size, and because of our ethos. Other places do have it, but it’s not consistent, either because of size or some other reasons. I’ve certainly experienced it elsewhere, because when you have talented educators, they’re going to create that kind of relationship, because they understand that their job is about learning. The best teachers are always learning. And the relationship between people who do high-level research and who teach, they understand that’s a holistic circle. That is an ecosystem that feeds itself. The difference here is that you really have that across the board—that’s one of the special things about Olin. 

Quinn: 

Could you tell us about a time that you felt really at home in a community and what you learned from that experience and what you took away from it?

May: 

Something important to know about me is that I grew up moving every couple of years, and it will surprise you to know that I was a very shy child. My mother would tell stories about how I was too embarrassed to say anything to anyone for the first many years of my life. But I think that the exercise of moving so frequently taught me to prioritize understanding the culture of the place that I was in and what was happening around me. I worked to understand the slang, the favorite foods, the habits—things that make up a community. It gives me comfort, and also it helps me meet people and make friends. Over time, I have learned to be comfortable with who I am, and therefore I feel at home in most places, though it took me a while to understand that it was within me and not something that I needed the community to give me. I realized if I could alter my own sense of perspective to be embracing and curious, in most cases it would be paid back. I don’t mean to paint the picture that I’m welcomed by every person in every place, but at least in my own lived experience, over time I’ve managed to feel some sense of community where ever I’ve landed. And I’m certainly feeling very welcome at Olin. I’m feeling very at home, even if I never would have expected that it would be in a suburb of Boston. 

Maddy: 

Life takes us crazy places, like Needham Massachusetts. 

May: 

Yes, exactly. What you learn is sometimes it’s about the geographical place, and sometimes it’s about the spiritual place, right? People say, “Where do you consider home?” My family would say New York City. Sometimes that’s how we define home. For me, home right now is Olin. It happens to be in Massachusetts. And I’m committed to learning about Boston and this whole area. I was really confounded by the idea that I had spent my whole life committed to living in cities and living in New York, and now I would be in the suburb of all suburbs. It’s very quiet at 8 pm here. You can’t walk out and go to the corner deli and get a quart of milk. It took me a while to go from being anxious or worried about that to thinking “Okay, this is going to be an adventure.” I did get lost on my first run. I went out without a phone thinking I’d just run straight and come back… that’s not what happened. Then I realized that every street was looking the same. Every house was looking the same. I had no idea where I was. 

Quinn:

Have you gotten to explore any parts of Boston at all? Have you taken the T?

May: 

Our daughter is a rising sophomore at Tufts, so we have spent some time navigating the Somerville, Medford, Cambridge part of Boston. And last year when we were here visiting, you know, we took the T, explored some areas of Boston, went to the Isabella Gardner Museum. I would not say that I am fluent in Boston yet. I think that will come with time. 

Quinn: 

Understandable!

[As our interview devolved into delightful conversation, the topic of Collaborative Design at Olin came up.]

May: 

I taught a version of Collaborative Design when I was in Shanghai, so I kind of have a sense of the class. I’d love to see how it’s taught here. 

Quinn: 

That’s awesome. What are some highlights from that experience, teaching that class similar to CD? 

May: 

I taught it in Shanghai to Chinese students who were engineers and scientists. They weren’t like you guys. You came into this excited about that, but they came to the class thinking, “Oh my God, this has nothing to do with math or engineering. Why are they making us take this?” The first semester was an unmitigated disaster. They hated it! And I had folks from IDEO teaching all the things that you love—the Post-its, the brainstorming, the put-yourselves-in another’s shoes, go out and do the field interviews, all that—my students hated it. To them, it just was a giant waste of time, and they were not shy in saying that. So I had to cancel the spring semester classes and redesign the whole class. I had to start from scratch. I had to really think about what was the essence of what we were trying to teach. Who were we trying to teach? What was it going to take to kind of get them there? What was the balance of direction versus exploration? They had a much longer road to get to the  starting point for most Oliners, and culturally, they were in a very different place. Asking people about their feelings is not something that really happens in Asian cultures and certainly not in China, right? So there was a lot of just going back to the brass tacks of, well, what are we really trying to achieve here? And then the second piece of that was how big the class was. How many students are there in CD here? 

Quinn: 

About 100, with teams of four to five. 

May: 

Right. Where I came from, you’d have 24 people in a section, and then they would break up into teams of four or five. The leadership in China said to me, “We have over a billion people here, so doing things 25 people at a time is not very sustainable.” And so what they said was, you have to do it with 100 kids in one classroom at a time. So I had to figure out how to break them into teams, and then I had to figure out how to manage the teams. Just think about what you do in CD if you are in a team, and you’re reporting back out and getting feedback. If you have 20 teams and you have one hour to do that, it’s not very much. 

Quinn: 

Here, there’s four faculty dedicated to that process and a whole host of student workers. 

May: 

Right. So I got to a place where I thought, okay, I can do this with two teaching faculty members, but we had no student workers. But it was really gratifying. It was amazing to see when we finally got it right, the “Oh, this is why it matters”. That was almost 10 years ago when I started, and now those students in those first two or three classes are all getting their PhD’s, and I think really embracing the spirit of what we taught them. As a teacher, the most gratifying thing that you can see is that somehow it made a difference in their lives and how they think about their work, which I think is how faculty members here feel about you guys. 

Quinn: 

Yeah, definitely. I hope you get to see part of the CD process in the spring because it’s really quite magical, I think, to see all of that just sort of unfold.

May: 

Yeah, I mean, I’m hoping that I get to. I’m going to sit in on DesNat, and ModSim. I thought my first couple weeks I’d spend more time with the team and the faculty and the students, just trying to get a sense of the place. 

Quinn: 

Is there stuff that you’re going to do to try to maintain that connection, aside from the first couple of weeks? Because students graduate, faculty turnover, and staff turnover. How are you going to keep that fire going throughout your time here?

May: 

My hope is to have at least one lunch a week in the dining hall. When my schedule settles down—let’s say after the first three months—my hope is that I also have regular office hours, one afternoon a week for students who can just drop by and chat about anything. Though it’s also a good learning for people to think, “Oh, I can actually make an appointment and go to the president.” So we’ll see. I think having regular sessions where people could attend, and then opening up so that, whether it’s for Halloween or Chinese New Year—maybe trying to do parties at the President’s house so students have a place to come and be social more than 15 feet away from West Hall. I’m thinking about those things and I’m open to ideas if folks have suggestions.

Quinn: 

It’s awesome that you’re thinking about this; it’s really encouraging. 

May: 

Yeah, I’m thinking a lot about it. I feel that being in community physically together is an important thing for us. 

Quinn: 

Looking broadly in five years when it comes to the end of your term as president, regardless of whether you continue—I hope you do. You seem really awesome and great for this community. What things do you think you’ll be thinking about to determine whether you’ve had a successful term as president of all? 

May: 

I think if we can successfully answer the question, “What is Olin’s identity for the next 25 years?”, and we have some clarity about how we want to do that in five years, that would be a success. So I would include in that, getting us to a place where we’re feeling financially resilient. We’re running an operating deficit right now; we’re spending more money than we’re bringing in. And I’m not saying that every decision has to be driven by financials, but we can’t make decisions without thinking about financials. Getting that balance right and having the community see that and understand it, and getting us to a place in five years where we’re spending what we bring in, or we’re bringing in more than we’re spending, is a really important goal for us to hit in five years. If we want to be responsible stewards of this institution that we love, then we want to make sure that it’s here for another 25, 50, or 100 years. You don’t spend more money than what’s in your bank account; it’s not responsible. And then I think really being able to execute on Olin’s identity and who we are in the next five years, whatever those two or three things are, would feel successful. I would say the final piece, and I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I do sense—both in your questions and what I’ve heard—a sort of yearning for us to be together more as a community, to have a degree of trust and to really be able to have a dialogue. I think if we get to that place in five years, I would be really happy. 

Quinn: 

I would also be very happy to see that. 

Maddy: 

That is definitely important to us. Probably one of the top things on everybody’s minds right now is having that. 

May: 

The other thing that I said to another large group is that as great as some aspects of the Olin culture are, I think that we are not as fluent as we could be in addressing conflict. Often people think, “Oh, I don’t want to speak up because people won’t like me,” or “They’ll disagree” or “They’ll yell at me” or whatever it is. I would like us to work on that. In this moment, we need to learn how to disagree with each other and still be in community. There are many people in my life who, they may not be my best friends, but they are people with whom I’m friendly. They are neighbors. They didn’t vote for the same person, they probably don’t believe necessarily in the things that I believe in, I don’t believe in the things that they believe in, but we’re in the same community, and so we have to find ways to be able to do that. I think that happens less and less. I don’t know if you’ve seen the work that’s been done on migration patterns in this country, but what you’re starting to see is people are moving to places where other people agree with them. If I look back at all the places where I grew up, I realize we likely lived with folks with a totally different worldview t, and yet we were still neighbors. We had potlucks together. We had block parties together. We played with their kids. The adults carpooled. Whatever it was, we managed to live together, even though I’m pretty sure now you would find us completely different in almost everything. But we were neighbors. That’s important for us to do here at Olin. And the truth is, we’re a lot alike here because we all co-create, and so meeting somebody who has no patience in co-creation says, “Look, I just want to decide.” What do you do when you’re faced with that? 

Quinn: 

And how do you resolve that conflict?

May: 

That’s the question. I think the answer is that yes, you won’t always get what you want, and they won’t always get what they want, but understanding how to do that is important. 

Quinn: 

It’s really awesome to hear that you’re thinking about this in a transparent way. Hearing from the next leader of the college that we need as a community to be better at conflict is really encouraging. 

May: 

I have said that to other people. So far, nobody has hit me (literally or metaphorically speaking). So I think that’s a good sign. 

Quinn: 

Well, thank you so much!

May: 

No, thank you guys. Thank you for making the effort. I’m glad we could make it work. I look forward to seeing how silly I look in print.

An Interview With Alisha

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[Quotes edited for clarity and brevity by Alisha and the editorial team.]

Quinn: To start us off, thank you for meeting with us. It’s super exciting.

Alisha: Thank you for inviting me! 

Quinn: It’s a great honor to be able to talk to you on your last couple of days at Olin, which is so sad. How’s it feeling getting ready to head off to something new?

Alisha: It’s pretty weird because I’ve been here for most of my professional life, which is longer than some of our students have been alive. I have a lot of different feelings. It was really nice having two going-away parties! At the faculty and staff party, it was really touching, because a bunch of people, some I’ve worked with for decades, talked about ways that I had impacted their life. It was really nice to realize I’ve had an impact. People have always asked, “why do you stay so long?” I’ve always said, ”because of the people!” And because I’ve gotten to keep growing personally, and to make positive change. It’s been nice reflecting back on that and having it reflected to me. 

Quinn: In what ways do you think you’ve grown? In the many, many years you’ve been here. What are the notable growth moments?

Alisha: From a purely professional standpoint, I started as this regular faculty member doing bioengineering research, trying to figure out how to grow cells with undergraduates—which turns out to be really hard—and was hugely influenced by all these amazing educators who were really thinking deeply about education and good pedagogy. And so I got to thinking about those things, but also figured out that I really like being an administrator. I have this distinct memory of Mark Somerville, as an associate dean, walking into my office in 2011 and asking me if I wanted to be the associate director of SCOPE. I still felt “new,” had never thought about leadership, and I was still pretty quiet, which I know is hard to believe. I went home and thought about it over the weekend, and I was like, “actually I do want to do that.” Back then, many students felt like it was very disconnected from the Olin curriculum, and had this feeling of kind of “selling your soul”.  As SCOPE director, I focused on how it really is a capstone to our curriculum (and I started drawing pictures of capstones, and telling the story of how the stuff in ModSim, ISIM, P&M, CD, design depths, major classes, et cetera, built up to this capstone experience, and how it was really different than the capstone experiences at other schools where they were like “yeah, do all this stuff at the very end.” But it also made me realize I liked doing that kind of culture change work, and program work, and figuring out how to have an impact on students and colleagues that was bigger than just teaching bioengineering classes with five students. That led to being an associate dean, and then more surprisingly to being a dean of student affairs. I got to do all of these different jobs, and that it made sense in the Olin context. I love that I can see my impact on these different areas. I also need to give a shout out to human-centered design as an approach that aligns with my values and has shaped my research as well as my work as an administrator.

On a more personal note, it has been getting to work with all these cool people—colleagues and students—to have so many different conversations and learn from them. This part about the close-knit community has been incredible. There are still former students who are grown adults with children and lives, and we’re still in touch. Being able to learn from people and also have a positive impact on individuals has been so rewarding.  

Quinn: Do you think you’re gonna miss doing that sort of nitty-gritty technical teaching, like about specific subjects?

Alisha: I haven’t done that in a long time. The last class I taught was Biomedical Device Design in the spring of 2021. I do think I’m gonna miss working super closely with students; that’s gonna be a really big change going forward, because my primary focus will be faculty development. But I also know that if I’m thinking about faculty development, it’s about teaching students, so I’m still going to figure out how to get where the students are. I probably won’t miss having to deal with the shenanigans part of it! I’m excited to go back to focusing on the teaching and learning piece of it, as much as I’ve been an educator when having different conversations with individual students or groups. As Dean of Student Affairs, sometimes that educational conversation is something like, “maybe doing that thing was not a good idea, and let’s look at the bigger picture, and the impact on other people and the community.” Bringing all of that knowledge of what’s going on for students outside the classroom, at school, with their family, in the world, is going to be huge, because it’s not a vantage that most faculty get. 

Quinn: Can you tell us about what you’re doing after Olin and how that relates to what you have been doing here?

Alisha: I’m going to be the executive director of the ATLAS Center—Advancing Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship – at Wentworth Institute of Technology (WIT). The teaching and learning center already exists at WIT, but right now it lives in IT, so they’re kind of seen by the community as the tech support for their learning management system (ours is Canvas). But they’re also trying to do all this great instructional design and support for faculty teaching and learning scholarship. There’s all this great stuff happening, so they’re rebranding it with a new name and moving it under the provost’s office so it’s seen as a more academic department. I’m excited to think about how to elevate that teaching and learning piece, and about faculty development and student outcomes. This comes back to the culture change piece that I enjoy doing.  Wentworth is all about student outcomes, in an OG hands-on learning way, focused on preparing students for engineering careers.  Being mission-driven in this very pragmatic way that makes STEM education more accessible is very values-aligned for me.

Gia: You’ve been exposed to many kinds of – you used the word – shenanigans in your shifting roles at Olin. What shenanigans make Olin “Olin”? How has that informed your work, what you’ll take with you to Wentworth, etc.?

Alisha: I’m going to try to come back to your actual question, but I wanted to reflect on something interesting that’s embedded in that. It’s something I’ve thought about at many different stages, but especially as I’ve gotten involved in the student affairs community: we’re not that special. There are some really funky things about how our culture plays out, mostly with our size, but in terms of the overall stuff that we’re dealing with, I think we collectively have a tendency to think that we’re very different, and therefore we need to do things differently. Going to student affairs conferences and talking to people from all kinds of other schools—everyone’s dealing with the same stuff. People who are 18 to 22 are always pushing boundaries and trying stuff, and people at engineering schools tend to be problem solvers in all sorts of interesting ways. I think our uniqueness comes from a somewhat intentional and somewhat organically-grown lack of certain pieces of infrastructure. Our culture has fostered a real feeling of “students need to do all these things themselves”. This can cause many difficulties and tensions in how students are encouraged to spend their time and energy. 

My biggest focus in the last four years has been trying to build trust. When I started, the thing I heard over and over was “we don’t trust StAR.” And if Oliners don’t trust this entire set of people, even if it’s about one or two people, they’re not going to come for the resources. And we know they need the resources! It’s not all perfect; it’s not sunshine and flowers all of the time, but a lot of progress has been made in that space. 

Back to your question: some of the specific shenanigans are around different opinions about what is appropriate behavior, and what is appropriate for students to do. In some ways, that’s true everywhere. Sometimes when you have those conversations, it’s a total surprise. Whereas I think at other schools, people would be like, “yeah, okay, I kind of knew I broke the rules.” Olin students are like, “There are RULES?!” I mean, I’m overstating that, but I think that’s some of the funny stuff to figure out. 

Gia: Can you tell me more about what you mean by policy and risk? [mentioned in ramblings that were cut]

Alisha: Student group safety! That’s the thing I worked on a lot last year. This has been interesting because I do have a lab safety background and a project advising background through SCOPE, and so I was able to bring some of that in a way that spans some of the different areas, which is not typical in student affairs. But we had not built enough of an integrated infrastructure to provide appropriate oversight of some of the things students are working on. Something hard, and sometimes novel at Olin is that sometimes we’ve had to say “no, we can’t actually support this thing, because we don’t have the space or it’s actually hazardous in a way we cannot support.” I do think it’s this thing where we were okay in the beginning, and then we just didn’t really… stay…

Quinn: We didn’t stay with the times.

Alisha: We didn’t stay with the times! And now we’re sort of trying to catch up. Especially with all of the continuity lost during COVID, there’s been a little bit of a “wild west.” Trying to get that under control in a way that maintains student autonomy and all the things that are beautiful about having these groups, and also brings us into the modern world in a way that creates a manageable infrastructure is super challenging. Because of that, in my last weeks I’ve been working on all these transition documents and trying to pass stuff on for the next dean.

Quinn: You can feel it out?

Alisha: Yeah. I kind of know what’s going on. And there’s so much transition and work that spans student affairs. I think Frankly Speaking is a great example of the evolution of things. There’s a thing that Frankly Speaking used to be, and that doesn’t have to be exactly the thing Frankly Speaking is in the future, while also keeping the really important essence of what Frankly Speaking is. I think that’s what you all have shepherded so well this year, thinking about that, and really leaning into “we don’t have to stick to this tradition—we can keep the stuff that’s integral and modernize.” 

Quinn: How has being in this administrative role, dean of student affairs, changed your perspective of Olin academia and academia as a whole?

Alisha: I think it’s really rare to have both a faculty perspective and a staff perspective. While I always have that faculty perspective, I feel fully immersed in the staff world. In higher ed, there’s usually a divide—it’s a lot smaller between faculty and staff at Olin, but it still exists, and I think it’s something that staff tend to be much more aware of than faculty. I know I was totally clueless when I was purely a faculty. We often talk about how support work is like an iceberg. You see the top stuff, but there’s all this stuff happening underneath that tends to be invisible if it’s going well. 

Quinn: Given all of this context and development and learning that you’ve done, what do you hope to see Olin do with all of that in the next five, ten years?

Alisha: I do hope that folks continue to understand the important role that student affairs plays in the student experience, and that resource that appropriately. I think understanding how much the high-touch services are part of what we are offering to students, and part of that value proposition that students and their families are really looking at with their money and their choices about where they go—that’s an important piece of the puzzle.

Gia: Looking back, what are some things that you’re proud of? You said that you feel like you have your fingerprints in a lot of places, what are places that you look at like “wow, I’m super proud that I did this; this is something that I’m glad has happened here”?

Quinn: Things that current Olin students might not know about at all.

Gia: Yeah, big or small.

Alisha: I think there’s so many phases. I’m super proud of the stuff I did in SCOPE. I led changing the faculty advising model, and grading to make it more consistent for both students and faculty. I started the work to shift the narrative of “SCOPE is all defense and robotics” by really focusing on a broader portfolio of projects to match the interests and values of more students. So much of what I’ve done over my time here is in the equity and inclusion space, starting from when I was a visiting professor. I got immediately involved in the gender and engineering co-curricular. I was one of the people who was focused on that work inside and outside of Olin. When we had our first openly trans student, I put together a training, and I was like “okay we’re gonna do Trans 101, friends!” Initially, there were just these ad hoc things, and then that was a big part of my portfolio when I became associate dean of faculty—faculty development, but also really thinking about equity and inclusion in the classroom. When we had the new strategic plan, we formed a group called the “DEI Champions”, and a lot of what we did is more focused strategic planning of like “here’s what we need—here’s the path for thinking about cultural competency for advising, here’s the path for making sure people are getting the training and education they need for thinking about inclusivity of belonging in classrooms,” and I think that’s been a really core part of what I’ve done, and obviously a core part of what I’ve brought into my work in student affairs. Many of my colleagues are doing incredible work, but I think that’s one of the biggest places I’ve had formal and informal impact. 

I think it’s a lot of little things too, the stuff that I’m proud of. What people have been reflecting over the last weeks, I’m like “oh wow, I didn’t even think about that.” A student was like “yeah, I was going through my emails and my first email from you was doing name change stuff before I came.” Sending 15 emails back and forth to get it right is at the core of how to do this work for me.

Quinn: As we’re wrapping up here, is there anything you want to say to the Olin community as sort of a last goodbye?

Alisha: I think my primary feeling towards the bulk of the Olin community is just a real sense of gratitude. Especially to students, who don’t have to trust me with their shit. For all of it, for the vitriol, and the thanks, and moments of getting things, and being able to witness people grow and change. Because I see it as passion for this community, and that is a shared value that I appreciate. 

Quinn: Thank you so much. We are going to miss you.

Alisha: Thank you, it’s been a pleasure.

Quinn: I hope that you keep reading Frankly Speaking. :)

Alisha: Oh, I will.

New Title IX Coordinator Can’t Wait to Meet Us Live and in Person

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Justin Bell (he/him) is our new Title IX Coordinator and the Director of Non-Discrimination Initiatives. He is a shared resource between Olin and Wellesley, having a primary role in the conduct of both schools. Justin is also responsible for ensuring that our school acts in accordance with Federal NCAA rules. He is currently working remotely, but hopes to begin in-person work in the next few weeks. 

Justin began his career in college athletics with stints at Fairfield University, Northeastern, and the University of Hartford. He became interested in Olin through Wellesley, and was drawn to the campus atmosphere, attracted by the idea that students are listened to and treated as partners to the faculty and staff. During his application process, when he was told that students would also partake in the hiring decision, that only made him want to be a part of this community more.

Since starting work here, Justin has experienced proof of our school’s positive feedback and partnership culture.

One thing that Justin wants to convey here is that his office is not just meant to for filing or disputing complaints The Title IX and Non-Discrimination sector can be a place to learn and ask questions, and it is a place people can go to for resources or advice. In an ideal world, it should be a place where people aren’t afraid to seek guidance in any form.

As of this issue’s publication, Justin is most accessible via email at jbell@olin.edu 

Keep an eye out for a new presence on campus in the coming weeks!

New Director of Wellness Says “Be Kind To Yourself”

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Frances Mantak (she/her) began working at Olin during Family Weekend. She is our new Director of Wellness (as you may have guessed by the title of this article). 

Her main role in our community is to be a resource to support the physical and mental health of our student body. Her job involves both supporting us directly as well as educating us on how to support ourselves. She is what one could call a “Public Health Nerd.”  

 She was drawn to our community because of the features that make the school different from others she had worked at. Features such as the small size, the solely undergraduate focus, the sense that someone could really get to know people here. Moreover, she was attracted by the potential for a single person to have a large positive impact. 

Since coming here, Frances has confirmed a lot of her expectations, and in a concrete and tangible way. She’s excited to learn what else this community contains.

On any college campus, relationships and friendships can be challenging.  “That must be especially hard at Olin,” she says, “so I want  to help students navigate relationships in healthy ways.” One way to do that is to have compassion for yourself.  Self-compassion is an effective method of helping with all kinds of stress, conflict and mental health concerns.  Frances enjoys giving presentations on this topic and wants everyone to know that you can find lots of resources at www.self-compassion.org. Simply put, self-compassion means  “giving ourselves the same care we would a close friend.”

Frances’ dog Max wants you to know that if some snuggling would lower your stress levels, he’s here for you.  Her foster-fail kitten, Dr. Marmalade, isn’t available for visits because of her busy medical practice, but she’ll gladly share some of the Dr.’s gorgeous photos to make you smile.

Stay in school!

Our Hopes: Returning From Online Classes

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This semester we are returning to Olin in-person, after two and a half semesters of classes online or a hybrid of online and in-person. Olin classes typically involve building things, using tools, and lots of teamwork.While many classes had extremely creative solutions for moving their content online, things were undoubtedly different. At the end of the summer, I interviewed several current juniors and seniors about their experience with online classes, and what their hopes are as we go into an in-person fall semester.

While students had widely varying experiences with different parts of their online classes, everyone I talked to said that the experience was overwhelmingly lonely. “It did feel lonely and isolating at times… you’d run into those moments where you’re like, ‘Oh, I am sitting alone in my room, scribbling on a piece of paper, hunched over my bed.’” one student said. Multiple students said it was “harder to check up on people,” and that they felt less connected with their teammates than they had during in-person semesters.

While everyone experienced loneliness, students had different experiences with other aspects of online learning. While for one student professors seemed inaccessible and writing an email felt overwhelming, another said it was easy to find time to talk to professors because they only had to write an email and set up a Zoom call. The Zoom chat was especially polarizing: some people found it overwhelming and distracting, some felt more engaged using it, others really enjoyed having a “backchannel” to share links, and others only liked it as a place to type a brief check-in. A few students said that assignments and due dates were more well-documented and easier to keep track of than they’d been in-person, while others felt like the wide variety of online tools being used–Canvas, Slack, Discord, and custom class websites, to name a few–made things more confusing.

At the end of each conversation, I asked students what their hopes were for this semester. Here are some of their responses:

  • “I am super excited to be back on campus! I just really want to be around people again, I’m very excited to work in teams and in groups, and in the AC–or the MAC is what it’s now called”
  • “I hope I can maintain relationships without being in the same space as a person”
  • “I want to share my stupid ideas with people more”
  • “I hope that I can still find assignments online if I miss them”
  • “I’m really excited to have more space, like, not be confined to a single bedroom”
  • “I don’t think my priorities have changed that much, but I have a better idea of how to attack them now”
  • “I want to talk to professors more”
  • “I… do not know, right now, because I’m just expecting things to be difficult, and… I just hope to be able to stay afloat, in whatever way I can”
  • “I want to focus more on activism, and ethics in engineering and everything you do”
  • “I’m really hoping for a dynaming of rebuilding community that is patient. I hope that people share with one another and that we maintain this compassion that we built in zoom land, understanding that just because we’re back in person now doesn’t mean people’s lives are dramatically easier”
  • “I want ‘normal plus plus’”

Although we’re already two weeks into the semester, much still feels uncertain. What are your own hopes for this semester? I hope that as we continue to settle into a kind of routine, we can support each other and ourselves in achieving these hopes as best we can.

Meet President Gilda Barabino!

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Welcome to the September issue, and the first, of the 2020-2021 academic school year! I hope you all have had a chance to settle into your new places for the fall semester.

This article comes from a collaboration with the Marketing and Communications department, who reached out to me about interviewing President Barabino, who became president of Olin College on July 1, 2020. I want to thank President Barabino for taking the time to meet with me, as well as Anne-Marie from MarCom for guiding me through the process and polishing the questions and interview with me.

Thank you as well to the students who submitted questions for this interview (and also told me what you want from FS this fall) and to my wonderful editors, Anusha Datar and Dianna Sims (and also to Mark Goldwater, who’s a consultant)!

This interview happened through Zoom on a Monday, August 17, morning at 9 a.m. Thankfully, the call was recorded and transcribed. This interview has been edited for length and in some cases clarity. Let’s get started!

Serna: How has this stay-at-home period been like for you? What’s something positive that’s come with it?

President Barabino: Staying at home has actually meant a lot of Zoom meetings. But the one thing that I think has been a benefit of [having] Zoom meetings [is that] it enables you to bring a broad range of participants from different locations who may not have otherwise been able to gather at the same time.

One exciting opportunity was the Ask Me Anything [AMA] evening. We were all spread out in remote locations; we would not have been able to gather that way ordinarily since we weren’t able to be on campus. Zoom allowed us to do that, and it was a great opportunity to get to know members of the community and for members of the community to get to know me.

Serna: What’s something you are looking forward to this semester?

President Barabino: What I’m looking forward to the most is actually the start of the new academic year. There’s been so much anticipation of taking on the presidency and being the academic leader, and there’s something about the excitement of the fall, the newness of the academic year and the new semester. There’s an excitement around renewal that you just can’t escape. That’s the most exciting thing for me, and [also] to get to know more of the community in a deeper way.

 Has the assigned reading been shared with everyone?

Serna: I believe it’s The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom.

President Barabino: Yes, I picked it! I’m excited for us to have something that we as a community can read together and discuss together, as just an additional way to get to know each other.

Serna: How exciting is it going to be? How would you convince others to read this?

President Barabino: To me, there’s something we can learn about people, the people who we know or would like to get to know better, if there’s something we can learn about one another by having a shared reading experience. I think the fun is in the sharing and learning. We’ll see, when we actually get an opportunity to talk about it.

Serna: We’re planning a convocation, and I don’t know if you know, but we’re planning on having you talk during this. And I think knowing what you have to say about it will make reading the book worth it.

President Barabino: People want to know one another as one individual to another. They want to know about your life, about your experiences. It turns out, usually, there’s something about someone’s experience that you can tap into: “That happened to me too.” Even if it’s not the same thing, there are similarities that people bond over. Humans like to connect; that’s why we want to be on campus together. That’s why we want to connect even if it has to be on Zoom.

Serna: No one would be Zooming if we didn’t care.

President Barabino: That’s right.

Serna: Tell us more about being a tempered radical. I saw your interview with WGBH where you said, “One who is radical and trying to be a change and has an understanding of working in the system. Creating change within.”

President Barabino: So, part of what that concept means in addition to that: If you think about “tempered” in the sense of a metal becoming tougher from alternately being heated up and cooled down – if you’re a tempered radical, maybe in a certain setting you increase the heat, you push harder, you put on more pressure. There could be, in certain situations, certain contexts [where] it makes sense to cool down, back off a bit — having a sense of when and how to be more forceful or not, to speak up more or not. It’s the tempering that allows you, hopefully, to be more effective, because different situations call for different kinds of reactions. If you want to be effective, it may be that one time is a time for screaming loudly and other times not so much because you wouldn’t be heard.

Knowing when and how to use that voice, knowing when and how to have agency — I think that’s the broader concept of being a tempered radical. And to do that, you have to be in a system. How can you stand on the outside looking in and have an impact? You have to be a part of the system you are trying to change.

Serna: Do you want to share an experience?

President Barabino: Part of my experience is, when going into a new environment, and and observing or experiencing things that are unfair, being able to call it out. If I didn’t call it out, I’d lose the opportunity to make a difference, because it would go unseen. [It’s about] knowing when and how to do that.

So [here’s] one of the things I have done in the past: If I’m in a situation and I’m the only woman or woman of color, and I know there are reasons why women or women of color are not being afforded the same opportunities as others, then I will call that out and say, “Here’s the reason why you are not having more people who come from certain backgrounds participating.” Drawing attention to it will, hopefully, give people an opportunity to come up with some strategies that can make a difference.

I’ll give you a concrete example. I was an associate chair for graduate studies in the biomedical department at Georgia Tech, and the graduate student population did not have a lot of diversity in terms of underrepresented minorities or even women. So when I became an associate chair, I looked at the data. I looked at where we were recruiting. I looked at how we were actually carrying out our selection process, and asked questions about what we could change so that we would actually yield a more diverse population in [both] the applications and those that we accepted. So it’s really being there in that system and actually calling it out when you see it. After I got involved, the very next class that came in was the most diverse class that the department had ever accepted.

Serna: What is the biggest obstacle you have faced in your career that almost made you give up, but you pushed through and realized what you could have missed? [question submitted by Dianna Simms]

President Barabino: I don’t think that there is any one thing. I would point to something that is a long-standing obstacle: persistent and ingrained biases. They are persistent within people, within organizations, within institutions, [and they] tend to — when acted upon by people —advantage some and disadvantage others. It’s even harder because it’s harder to see it, name it, call it out, and act on it, but it is there. So these biases that are ingrained become part of people’s thinking — people who are in power and set rules and practices that advantage some and disadvantage others. 

That, I think, is the kind of obstacle that is the worst, because it is persistent and it is ingrained. And it can hold talent back; it can hold certain people back. Part of what I’ve done is to really stand for what is equitable and fair, so that opportunities are equitably distributed.

Serna: I really appreciate your response and I totally see where it’s coming from. Like … [Makes a fist.]

President Barabino: And people don’t usually talk about it. People don’t typically talk about more deeply rooted biases that effect access to opportunities.

Serna: A part of that … I think it took me a solid two to three years of college to be like, “Wait, wait a second, what is happening here?” Once you figure it out, who do you tell? You just have to — at least for me, as I feel like my mom has been trying to tell me my whole life — you have to slowly swallow it and know you are swimming against the current, even though I never accepted that until I was actually pushed back by the water. Then I was like, “Oh gosh, my mom was right.”

President Barabino: See, it’s true, and the important thing is to know it, understand it — do not internalize it, and don’t let it keep you down. Because I think a lot of it is our mindset and how we look at things, like if you let people tell you [that you] are lesser than and then believe it. I’m not letting anyone tell me that.

Serna: I mean, it’s hard when the entire room is telling you, at least in my experience.

President Barabino: I think knowing that it exists is helpful. What I did, knowing that, [is] I started researching organizational behavior, personal and organizational dynamics, because I thought, “Okay, wait, so people act a certain way, and what I need to do is understand how people act in what context so that I can be in a position to navigate those situations, because it’s all about people in the end and how one human interacts with another human.” I thought, “Huh, I need to better understand how this works. So that when I see a particular type of  behavior, I am in a better position to protect myself from biases or speak up on the biases, a better position to handle it, and not let it derail me.” Because it’s easy to get derailed. So I don’t let other people’s expectations [take over]. If someone’s saying, “I don’t think you can do this because you’re a Black woman,” well, I’m not going to buy that. That’s ridiculous. So I think if we understand that and understand what’s motivating sometimes — when someone is driven to put a person down, because they’re trying to push themselves up — we can overcome that and in fact we can all pull one another up. That makes more sense to me.

Serna: I’m going to be bold and assume you’ve made mistakes that make you cringe. A step you shouldn’t have taken or a step you did. How did (or do) you cope with the feeling of knowing you’ve been wrong and can’t change it?

President Barabino: The older we get, the more we learn to handle mistakes, because we’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to have mishaps; we’re going to say something the wrong way; we’re going to do something we wish we hadn’t done. For me, the ones that I usually worry about the most, honestly, because I’m really a people person, [are] how I made someone else feel or how I helped someone else or not. That really bothers me — if I wasn’t at my best to help someone else be at their best.

So if I said something that I could’ve said better, or maybe I shouldn’t have said it at all. I really do rethink those things. What I try to do is learn from it. I make a note, I really do, a note to self: “That didn’t go so well. You could’ve handled that differently.” I think about if the situation presents itself again, how can I better try and understand the other person. When people are having interactions and it’s not going so well, we’re very quick as human beings to say, “It’s your fault, not mine. I’m not doing anything wrong.” I have tried to own my piece of the situation — that has sort of helped me through the cringe moments.

Because I’ll own up. I’ll tell somebody I made a mistake. I think we have to be willing to admit to our mistakes and then try to do better the next time.

That was a good question.

Serna: In case you didn’t have a good response, I was thinking about the story that you had lost your test tubes and months of research, when you were on the subway and someone bumped into you.

President Barabino: It was depressing. It was like, I was like, “Okay. Start over.” It was crushing. [She laughs for a long time.]

Serna: I laugh a little at your optimism, looking back at it and being like, “It was so depressing and crushing, but okay, start over,” with a big smile on your face. That’s so good.

President Barabino: I think that has been my attitude for everything: “Alright, pick yourself up.” What are you going to do? Wallow in self-pity? It doesn’t fix anything.

Serna: But it feels so good.

President Barabino: [She laughs again for a while.] Right? You can allow yourself a certain amount of it, but not too much of it.

Serna: You get to treat yourself a little.

President Barabino: That’s so right. So I actually try to remind myself that every mistake, literally, you can learn from it. You might not see it right away, but eventually you may see how you can learn from that previous experience. Like it’s all bringing us toward some greater good later, even if we don’t see it right away.

Serna: Okay. I will take that to heart. 

Given your long history with biomedical engineering, do you plan to change or revive Olin’s bio-engineering program? In my opinion, it is a degree that hasn’t really been developed nearly as much as the others, and I wonder how it might change in the future. [question submitted by a student]

President Barabino: Yeah, I think that’s an easy one for me. It’s part of my passion. It’s part of what I’ve done my entire career. I look forward to enhancing what we do here in that space. And I will work with people, with students, with faculty, with outside potential partners like companies, to say, okay, what is it we can do at Olin to enhance our capacity, our learning, our teaching, and our contribution in the biomedical engineering space? And it will be fun! [Big smile.] There’s plenty to do. Yes, I plan on working on that. 

Serna: Do you have words of advice for those who feel lonely?

President Barabino: It’s important to identify if those feelings of loneliness suggest something bigger and more serious, perhaps the first signs of depression, in which case I encourage anyone in that situation to seek professional guidance and counseling. But if you’re asking about the kind of loneliness that can occur when a students is away from home for the first time then I would say look at ways to not be isolated and to focus on something positive. Things like reaching out to another person, or thinking about something that makes you feel happy and that makes you feel energized. It could be exercise. It can be really just thinking about how to use some alone time productively, just to get in sync with good thoughts. Think about the good things that have happened. Think about good things that [you] have contributed or things that [you want] to do.

I like music. I think music is a good pick-me-up. And reading or just doing … something. Sometimes if you get too isolated, too lost in thoughts, the act of moving, dancing, exercising or all of the above can serve as a oick me up. Of course, it’s always helpful if one person can find another person to connect with.

And let’s not forget the power of laughter which is therapeutic in its own right.

Serna: Do you have any words of advice or hope for people living off campus? As you might know, this is the first time that a majority of Oliners are living off campus.

President Barabino: My advice is, no matter what situation they find themselves in, to make the most of it. What [can] you do in that environment that makes the most of that environment? How do you connect with one another in that environment? How do you take it seriously? … Listen to science and be connected to each other. We’re Oliners; we think creatively. We can figure out how to do those things that keep everyone safe and help everyone feel connected. That would be my advice. But again, make the most of whatever situation you find yourself in. 

Serna: What about people living on campus?

President Barabino: In the same vein, like that way of “Here’s the environment I’m in — how do I best use this particular setting and take advantage of it while being mindful and serious and following the science and what we know. Just being smart about how we behave. Be smart about our interactions and our decisions in thinking not just about ourselves but [about] other people as well. So I think that whether you’re on campus or not, those are some really important things that people should be thinking about. 

Serna: Why did you choose to do the research you’ve done?

President Barabino: I was very purposeful in the research that I chose to pursue. I was interested in applying engineering to medical applications, and I was interested specifically in investigating a disease that impacts underserved communities, underrepresented communities, and health disparity populations (or those who don’t have the same level of access). I picked sickle cell disease because it disproportionately affects African Americans and I wanted to make a difference, in a way that makes people’s lives better by treating a medical condition. That was my real motivation to use engineering to study and solve medical problems. And I’m still active in that work to this day.

Serna: Do you plan to carry it over to Olin?

President Barabino: I won’t have a research lab at Olin, but I will be collaborating with others who are still doing this type of work.

Serna: So it would be external?

President Barabino: Yes, I would continue the work through external collaborations.

Serna: Would you want your own lab space at Olin?

President Barabino: At some point. I won’t necessarily want a dedicated space just for me, but I would love to participate and collaborate in spaces that already exist here by working with others. One of the things that’s fun for me is the ability to work with faculty and students on education and research on all sorts of topics. I’m looking to expand the areas that I’m working in. It’s rich here. There’s so much to pick from.

Serna: What’s your favorite type of ice cream? [question submitted by a student]

President Barabino: Chocolate.

Serna: What’s your favorite type of dessert? Cake, pie, ice cream? [She got really excited about dining hall ice cream when I mentioned the different flavors.]

President Barabino: I like all of them. Cake and pie with ice cream. If I had to pick one, I would choose ice cream.

Serna: What’s a question you wish I asked?

President Barabino: I saw that question, and I don’t know. I thought the questions were so wide-ranging and pretty thorough. I don’t know what else you could have asked right now. I thought it was pretty good. And it was fun! You’re a pretty good interviewer. Most times, interviewers don’t always know how to make their interviewees feel comfortable.

We should do more interviews. So that we all get to know one another. I just love getting to know students in particular because I learn so much from students. I see myself as a lifelong learner. Part of why I went into education, higher education in particular, is that I wanted to be in an environment where I was surrounded by youth and people who were excited to learn — people who bring new ideas to the table and fresh energy. That kind of energy helps energize those of us who’ve been at it for a while. New students bring the new energy we all need. The start of the academic year brings that.

We’re off into the new year. Come along for the journey!

Candid Interview with Rae-Anne Butera

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As the newest interviewers for Frankly Speaking, we decided to team up for our first interview with new Dean of Student Life Rae-Anne Butera. Mike Maloney guided us professionally at times, and we had a fantastic time with Rae-Anne in her welcoming office.

Always fond of students and higher education, Rae-Anne was previously the Associate Dean of Students and Director of the First Year Experience at Smith College, where she made numerous contributions to improve student life. She believes in a continuum of learning that incorporates the entire college experience, both inside and outside the classroom. Rae-Anne is also currently pursuing a PhD in Higher Education from UMass Amherst.

dec2013_raeAnneButera

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Interview with the Foundary

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In this email interview, Frankly Speaking asked Brett Rowley from the Foundry a few questions about the presence of the Foundry on campus and how students can get involved.

FRANKLY: What is the Foundry?

ROWLEY: The Foundry is Olin’s student-run entrepreneurship organization. It’s been around nearly as long as Olin, albeit in several different forms. “The Foundry” used to specifically refer to Edison House on Great Plains, which acted as an incubator and office space to student startups like Big Belly and the coffee guys. As it grew, it merged with another Olin entrepreneurship group and “the Foundry” became the name for both the building and the group. Now, since Edison house was re-appropriated for Marketing and External Relations office space, “the Foundry” largely refers to just the student group. We do have space in the Campus Center (on the 3rd floor, you’ll see our sign) that is available for students to use, but that space is not utilized as much as we’d like.

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A Candid Conversation with Jialiya Huang

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A Candid Conversation with Jialiya Huang about hardware development, working with co-founders, and what it feels like to get a company off the ground.

sept2013_tesselJialiya Huang, class of 2013.5, founded Technical Machine with Tim Ryan, class of ‘13.5, and Jon McKay, class of ’13, this summer. The company launched Tessel, their first product on September 5th, and is both thrilled and innervated by all the interest the Tessel has received already on Hacker News, Hackaday, and Japanese Slashdot.
Full disclosure, I’m working for Technical Machine too– mostly on press and marketing at the moment. But it was still a great opportunity to speak with Jialiya at length about the future of hardware development and her personal goals in starting a company.

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A Candid Conversation with Oscar Mur Miranda

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I accidentally scheduled Oscar’s interview for a holiday, but characteristically, he was already planning to be on campus. The bench under the window of his office was, as always, covered with functioning breadboarded circuits. He wore his usual easy grin and silk tie.

A native of both Spain and Puerto Rico, Oscar came, as he describes it, “home” to Boston in 1990. He earned his degrees at MIT, then came to Olin in 2005. At Olin, Oscar teaches Electrical Engineering, Design, and International Development.

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