Nicole Weber

Week 3 Student of the Week!

A rising senior at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, Nicole Weber shines brightly in the lab and on the court. Weber shares that her life is consumed by engineering, tutoring, and playing on the women’s volleyball team at school, “and I love it all!” said Weber. The one piece missing from her active academic career is research and that is why she looked specifically to a REU program.

Playing a college sport forces Weber to manage her time both on and off the court. She is involved in organizations on campus that focus on the things about which she is passionate. Weber attends weekly meetings for the Roger Williams branch of the National Society of Women in Engineering (NSWE). At these meetings, she learns about the opportunities a career in engineering can offer to women, including the REU programs. She also participates in fundraisers for the organization.

“My favorite event with NSWE is ‘Girl Scout Day’ when we invite troops of girl scouts to come and learn about engineering and how empowering it is for women to be in a field that was predominately geared towards men for a long time.”

Weber shares that being a part of NSWE and now participating in the REU program, will help her decide what her future entails, and whether graduate school will be her next step. She is also on the Student Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC) at Roger Williams. This committee provides a leadership role for Nicole where she says that, “We … assist in giving student athletes a voice when it comes to making decisions regarding their sport.”

Along with her responsibilities on the board of SAAC and as a member of NSWE, Weber is also a tutor in engineering and chemistry for her peers. She says tutoring allows her to not only assist students with their work, but also review the material and retain it as an active part of her daily life.

Weber is currently working in Darren Roblyer’s lab, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, where she is assisting with research in his laboratory, “Nano-based sensing of tissue environments in deep tissue.” Nicole is a Mechanical Engineering major but says that she is also very interested in Biomedical Engineering. She thinks the brain is an intriguing and exciting topic of study and considers a future combining neuroscience, mechanical and biomedical engineering. The future looks bright for Nicole, and NSF REU program has become part of her journey.