2025 Student Addresses

Investiture 2025 student address by BE and MEng candidate Jenna Martin ’24:

Transcript

Good morning, everyone! First I would like to acknowledge what a great honor it is to be here to celebrate this tremendous achievement with you all today. Thank you to the Thayer faculty, Dean Van Citters, Provost Kotz, Lehigh President Helble, members of the Thayer Board of Advisors, and the Dartmouth Board of Trustees. Thank you lab instructors, TAs, machine shop instructors, and the maintenance and grounds crew for this incredible day.

During the fall of my first-year at Dartmouth, my mother took a photo of me with a mask covering half of my face in front of the engraved quote on the side of Cummings that read 'To prepare the most capable and faithful for the most responsible positions and the most difficult service.' I remember reading that and feeling incredibly intimidated. I mean, the quote says 'most' three times. I don't even think it's possible to make that quote any more intense! The only person that I could ever imagine to embody that quote was my mother standing behind the camera.

Throughout my life I have witnessed her tackle some of the most complex engineering challenges in safety, health, and well-being. How could I ever measure up? How could I contribute to society as an engineer in a meaningful and impactful way?

I am sure many of you shared these feelings when you first arrived at Thayer. As we began our engineering journeys four or five years ago, we couldn't see the finish line, but nevertheless we chose to start it here in these woods with these people. Much like rowing a boat into fog early in the morning, we had to trust the people around us to work in unison and push towards the finish line.

We all chose to elect ENGS 21 during class selection, ready to innovate. Though in my case, ‘innovation' looked like seatbelt straps hot-glued to a pipe. Still, we learned to prototype, to iterate, and to lead with humility even when we had no clue what we were doing.

We carried these lessons we learned from ENGS 21 into all the classes that came after it. From building bridges in ENGS 33 to mars mission rovers in ENGS 76, I cannot remember a single project where everything went according to plan. We have learned to welcome failure for ourselves, but most importantly how to support others through it.

I remember when my group project partner broke the most important component of our project the night before the final presentation. I cannot emphasize enough how important that component was to our project. And I would like to tell you that everything ended up being fine but, academically speaking, it really wasn't. Nevertheless, the kindness and camaraderie of our team after that moment was the only way that our project could move forward.

We all forgive you, Sebastian.

Before I knew it, I was deep into a senior honors thesis, working on the geometric identification of 3D part files to prevent the illegal printing of firearms. It wasn't just theory, it was impact. And somehow, after years of questioning whether I'd ever measure up, I found myself right there, doing the work.

How did this happen?

Through five years of engineering and rowing at Dartmouth, I've learned that success, whether in the lab, on the river, or in life, depends not on brute force or raw intellect alone, but our ability to move together with purpose. We've prepared ourselves for difficult service because we've done it together.

In rowing, you train for years and years for a race that only will last a few minutes. This requires the athlete to truly enjoy the process, because you never know what the outcome will be. The same goes for engineering. You can pour years of hard work into a solution that ends up failing. So you must learn as much as you can from every moment and enjoy the process. And I have enjoyed every moment of the process here with you all.

So today, as I stand here in front of the Thayer community, I think back to that photo that my mom took, and how impossible this all once felt. I hope I've made her proud. Thank you Mom, for being my inspiration and for making it possible for me to experience this incredible journey.

I would be remiss not to thank my friends graduating today. I truly would not be here without you all. Your unwavering support and kindness have meant the world to me, and the camaraderie we've shared is something that I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Now, as we prepare to leave this place, these woods, these people, we carry with us not just what we've learned, but who we have learned it with. And I carry immense gratitude for this place and for all of you.

Thank you.

Investiture 2025 student address by PhD candidate Peder Solberg: 

Transcript

Well good morning everyone! It's an honor to be here celebrating Thayer's remarkable engineering graduates with you all today.

To the faculty and staff; family, friends, and mentors—thank you for everything you've done to help us reach this moment. And to my fellow graduates, it's been a long journey—longer for some of us than others—but we made it! Congratulations.

One of my early memories at Thayer was being invited to Thanksgiving dinner by the research engineers in my lab—John and Barb Currier. I was far from home and probably looked like I could use some home-cooked nourishment after finishing my ENGS 91 final. As I got to know the Curriers, I started to learn what it means to be part of the Dartmouth Engineering family.

You see, early in their careers, this innovative couple convinced their employer to let them share a single engineering job, alternating weeks so that one of them could always be home with the kids. John Currier, who sadly passed away a few years ago, carried that innovative spirit into MVP, a robotics company [spun from a student project] he helped start with his Dartmouth classmate, the late Buddy Teevens.

They had a mission to reduce football practice injuries, and each week in our lab meetings, John would update us on the company's latest progress. In hearing his stories, I realized that being a Dartmouth engineer is about more than just innovation—it's also about real impact.

But how do we have that real impact?

Well, you all at Thayer have shown me over the last few years that it starts by treating our classmates, our colleagues, our clients like they are family. We come to understand each others' stories, values, goals, and pain points. And because we know and appreciate these people, we don't hesitate to engage across difference or across discipline.

That's how John and Buddy combined their passions of engineering and coaching, in a way that led to over half of NFL teams adopting their safe-tackle robots. That's how I've seen many of you approach engineering—not just as technical work, but as a pursuit of that interdisciplinary magic, followed by an intense drive to turn ideas into reality.

Now, it does take a special kind of person to do that. And luckily, at this Thayer family gathering, we have no shortage of those brilliant—maybe slightly crazy—cousins who are willing to risk it all to have an impact. Let me give you a few examples. 

First, there's my labmate Becca Thomson, who has developed an implant material for women with pelvic floor dysfunction. She's launched her company NovaGyn, and is charging ahead to improve quality of life for millions of women. Or there's my friend Yanqiao Li, who reached beyond electrical engineering to learn about neuroscience and haptics, and is now about to start a company to develop chips that could transform how we as humans interact with machines. Or, there's Adam Gronewold, who pivoted from building lunar rovers to building agricultural robots for his PhD. Why? Because he realized after dozens of interviews with farmers that his robots had even more potential to impact lives on Earth by reducing fertilizer runoff.

That same interdisciplinary spirit shaped my own dissertation, as I stepped beyond my mechanical roots to also look at electrical properties of polymer composites. The result has been a whole new set of ideas for how we can make implants safer and more effective.

So while we celebrate today, I reflect again on what you all have taught me.

Our most complex challenges are human at their core, and solving them starts by treating stakeholders like family—understanding their needs and their values. From that foundation of trust, we can boldly cross boundaries into unknown territory, just as John, Barb, Yanquiao, Becca, and Adam have.

Finally, let's not forget to welcome those who are not yet at the table. Dartmouth Engineers, we have so much to offer. Thank you for welcoming me into this family six years ago, and for the many ways you each have inspired me along the way.

Congratulations again, Thayer graduates.