(bright classical music)

- Hello, and thank you for tuning in

to Connections & Directions,

our University of Michigan's Civil

and Environmental Engineering podcast.

My name is Michelle Santillian,

and I am the CEE Marketing
Communications Specialist

and host of this series.

During our podcast, we
are featuring members

of our CEE community and
how their work reflects

our mission of engineers
and service to society.

We will be highlighting
our strategic directions

and our commitment to diversity,
equity, and inclusion.

CEE's five strategic directions

are human habitat experience,
shaping resource flows,

adaptation, automation and
smart infrastructure finance.

I'm here today with Ethan Kennedy,

CEE's instrumentation
and control engineer.

Welcome Ethan, to our podcast.

- Thanks for having me.

- How long have you worked

at the University of Michigan
and specifically in CEE?

- So I started November of 2017

so it'll be six years this November.

- And what is your role in the department?

- So I'm a instrumentation
and control engineer.

So really that means assisting faculty

and graduate students
kind of bridge the gap

with programming

and electronics to help them
achieve their research goals.

- And you recently graduated

from the University of
Michigan with your degree.

Can you tell us a little
bit about what you studied

and how that supports your work?

- Yeah, so initially when I
hired in to the department,

my role didn't exist.

Over the years they
started to realize, hey,

computers are becoming
more and more important

and there's a lot of lapses of knowledge

in the department that we have.

So I initially hired in as
an electronics technician

and back in 2017 I was,
you know, just getting out

of the military, starting to
go to college on the GI bill.

And the opportunities that were presented

to me of, you know, kind of
the work that needed to be done

kind of aligned with, you
know, hey, I could step up

and do more engineering things
more than technician things.

So that's really, you know

comes down to instead of
following a specification,

kind of defining what the specification is

and kind of build a system around that.

'Cause a lot of times they
aren't really well defined.

So having this job while going to school

for engineering really
gave me a space to kind

of exercise the things
I was learning in class.

- You mentioned your
service in the military.

Thank you for serving our country.

Is there anything that you gained

from your experience there
that is relevant to your job

in CEE or that you apply
in your occupation today?

- Definitely.

So a big part of what
I did in the military,

so I was on submarines.

I was a reactor operator

for Los Angeles class nuclear submarine.

So that job was based

around really maintaining
an operating INC equipment,

instrumentation and control equipment,

onboard the submarine.

So the biggest thing that carries

over to the department
now is troubleshooting.

So someone comes to me and says, hey,

my equipment's not working.

I have, you know, years of
experience of fixing things

and figuring out what
the problem is to fix it.

So I'd say that's the biggest
thing that I take here

from the military.

- Okay.

And how do you see yourself participating

in CEE strategic directions?

- Yeah, so my degree's
electrical engineering

and computer science, they really play

into the automation portions
of our strategic vision.

I'm always excited to tackle
a challenge of someone coming

to me say, hey, we wanna
automate this thing.

Is it possible?

And, you know, it's just a
fun challenge to get creative

with making that happen.

- And how does our mission

of engineers in service to
society resonate with you?

- Yeah, so just bigger career
goals for me in general.

I like that civil and
water resource engineering

in general is more focused on, you know

making a civil society,

using our resources wisely.

It's not, you know, largely profit driven

like a lot of career paths you could take

in computer science and
electrical engineering.

So for me, that's kind of what
I want to do with my time.

I don't want to spend a lot

of my time and effort trying
to make a corporation rich.

I want to do something that'll, you know

do good for the world and
outlive me, so to speak.

- Sort of benefit the
greater good, if you will.

And how do you see DEI incorporated

in our department, not
necessarily specific to a class?

- Yeah, so, you know,
the university setting is

you know, great for
fostering a environment where

everyone feels comfortable
to voice their, you know

their ideas and that, and you know

from an engineer's
perspective, that's great to

have a diverse set of brains
thinking about a problem.

If you have a room full

of people from the same
state, same country, you know

a lot of their points of
view might be very similar.

So having a diverse set of people

in the room is just always
great for solving a problem.

- And what do you enjoy
most about your job?

- Yeah, so I would say feeling

like I make a difference
in people's lives.

So like when I first
started here, like one

of the very first things
I worked on there was this

this box that was logging oxygen.

And you know, there's a lot

of just issues they were trying to work

out and they came to me for help.

Like maybe I could steer
'em in the right direction.

And for me I was like,
oh, I can just, you know

throw this thing together for you

and get it all set up for you.

And they were, you know

they weren't kind of expecting that.

And at the end of it,
I gave him the box and

like to this day I remember
his face and everything

just the like sincere gratitude they had.

Like I could tell this thank you was real,

I could tell they greatly
appreciated what I, you know,

had made for them.

And that's kind of what motivates me

to come to work every day, so to speak.

- And is there anything
that you would like to add?

- I think the future is bright.

That's not a lot of
people's opinions right now

but I think working here has
really made me more optimistic

about the future, meeting
some of the faculty

that are thinking about these problems

that I've never considered to be a thing

that we should be thinking
about in regards to

you know, water resources
and civil engineering.

And I just really like to say thank you

to everyone in the department
for coming to this job.

It can feel thankless sometimes

and just having the passion that you do

and doing your research.

- Can you give me another
example of a situation

or something that you built
that just really st stands

out in your mind as unique
or extremely different maybe

from something that you've done before?

- Yeah.

Well, kind of a I guess it's
a small world story for me.

There was a project with the US military

in regard to the effects
of sailors on board ships

that are, you know, attacked by ordinance.

So the grad student,
the PhD student that was

on the project was not a US national.

So for those types of
projects specifically going

to the ship to install our
equipment, they weren't

you know, allowed to do
that for security reasons.

So for that, I got to go

with the professor to go
install this on a destroyer

in Pearl Harbor, which
was just so happened to

be where I was stationed
a few years before that.

And I got to install this equipment

onboard this ship to be
fired at by a submarine

which a few years before I was

on the submarine that was
doing that part of it.

And then I kind of got to
see the other side of it

so to speak.

So that's kind of an
interesting coincidence

that I got a kick out of, you know

just how much I guess
the research community

is linked in that way.

- And it sounds like an
exciting opportunity too to

be able to travel and
actually see what you've built

come into action, if you will.

- Yeah, I learned a lot
on that project too.

It was, I was still, I was
probably about a year or two

into my degree, so I didn't
know as much as I do now.

Obviously I learned, you
know, just a lot of, a lot

of stuff mainly with, you
know, like power consumption

things like that.

Just, you know, just
everyday stuff kind of now.

But I got exposed to a lot
of neat things on that trip.

- And putting it into
real world action too.

- Right, exactly. Yeah.

- Thank you for joining us today.

- Thanks for having me.

(bright music)

- Thank you for listening
to our podcast conversation.

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