5/22/2013
Jaime Kelleher isn’t shy about taking on tough tasks. For the Materials Science and Engineering graduate, that has been true most of her life, but it especially began to resonate after a conversation with professor Angus Rockett prior to starting classes at Illinois. Normally freshmen aren’t allowed to take more than 18 credit hours, but as Kelleher met with Rockett to try to squeeze in a math class she thought “sounded cool,” Rockett simply said, “You can do whatever you want.”
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Jaime Kelleher isn’t shy about taking on tough tasks. For the Materials Science and Engineering graduate, that has been true most of her life, but it especially began to resonate after a conversation with professor Angus Rockett prior to starting classes at Illinois. Normally freshmen aren’t allowed to take more than 18 credit hours, but as Kelleher met with Rockett to try to squeeze in a math class she thought “sounded cool,” Rockett simply said, “You can do whatever you want.”
“That put me into a mindset that I’ve been in ever since,” Kelleher said.
Watch more about Jaime Kelleher:
Editor’s Note: This is one in a series of short biographical sketches on the College’s Engineering Visionary Scholars. The scholars are identified based on academic ability and leadership potential and are expected to excel in their class work and develop as leaders. They enjoy a number of unique benefits and opportunities such as special classes and seminars just for Engineering Visionary Scholars. This year, the College of Engineering will graduate its first group of EVS scholars.
Kelleher, the College of Engineering’s H.L. Wakeland Undergraduate Leadership Award winner, has demonstrated that mindset in her career at Illinois. She had to promise to scale back if the load ever got overwhelming, but that never happened as she took over 20 credit hours every semester of her college career. She was the only freshman of 11 in that 300-level math class.
“Although the class didn’t count for anything I needed, I wanted to make sure I challenged myself right off the bat,” she said.
Riding Across Country for Cancer
Two days after the conversation with Rockett, Kelleher was introduced to Illini 4000 for Cancer, a registered student organization dedicated to raising funds and awareness for cancer research through cross country bicycle rides. By her own admission, she had little experience in fundraising or cycling, yet she has used both to hone her leadership skills at Illinois. She went to the info session and in short order was chosen to be a part of a team that would ride from New York to San Francisco eight months later.
Kelleher began training during the fall and everything was on course until she broke her spine in a sledding accident on Dec. 30.
“I remember thinking I could back out now and nobody would blame me,” Kelleher recalled. “I was lucky I only broke the bones and not any ligaments.”
Kelleher decided to press on. Despite not being able to run or bike for three months, she would walk seven or eight miles on the treadmill during the early winter workouts and finished the 10-week ride, biking an average of 75 miles per day.
After studying abroad the next year, Kelleher decided to make the journey with Illini 4000 again as a junior, this time as the team leader. Her challenges along the way included learning that one of the towns on the route had to be evacuated due to a forest fire.
“You get a completely different experience (as team leader),” Kelleher said. “The feeling you get crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, knowing you were in New York two months ago is absolutely amazing. The second time I thought I was going to crash because I was crying so hard that I couldn’t see.”
In addition to riding, cyclists complete the “Portraits Project,” interviewing cancer patients, survivors, and caretakers along the way.
“When one woman found out what we were doing, she said ‘You’re riding for me,’” Kelleher recalled. “When you’re biking up a mountain and struggling because it’s hot and your legs are aching, you think about those people and realize this is nothing compared to what they’re going through.”
The ocean-to-ocean rides are just two of the many ways Kelleher touched and was touched by her experience at Illinois.
International Experience
During her freshman year, Kelleher was the lone American on a service project sponsored by the National University of Singapore Civil Engineering Club, building a geotextile footpath in Indonesia so kids could have a safer way to school. She worked through 100-degree days, sorting aggregate out of pick-ups and laying concrete. Although she wasn’t scheduled to complete final exams until Dec. 18 that year, Kelleher petitioned her professors to let her take those exams early so she could be in Singapore on Dec. 7.
Kelleher spent her sophomore year in Munich, taking engineering classes in German and later traveled to South Africa through an urban planning course to study spatial and racial inequalities in post-apartheid Cape Town.
Developing CARE
Kelleher is one of a handful of Engineering Visionary Scholars, the first class of which is graduating this year. Those scholars played a big role in developing the CARE Center on the fourth floor of Grainger Library where students can be a part of study groups or receive tutoring help. Among the recommendations from the EVS students were exam review gatherings and sessions to help freshmen register for classes.
“Students here often never had to go to tutoring or ask for help before,” Kelleher said. “We wanted to foster an atmosphere that CARE was for smart people who know when they need to work with other people. It promotes students working together, teaching each other, and meeting new people.”
Groundbreaking Research
Kelleher has taken advantage of research opportunities, helping Professor Brendan Harley in developing a collagen scaffold, which would interface between a tendon and a bone to promote injury healing. She is working under Professor Nancy Sottos in developing a two-dimensional microvascular network for autonomous cooling in polymers.
“One thing that has especially impressed me is how much the faculty and staff want you to do well,” Kelleher said. “Anybody that I’ve ever approached has been willing to talk to me.”
Life After Illinois
Kelleher met with eight different faculty or staff members while preparing for her next career move. She has decided to pursue a master’s and PhD in mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, working with nanostructured polymers. Before enrolling there, she plans to continue research at Illinois while working as a bike mechanic just for fun.
Kelleher credits the Engineering Visionary Scholarship for allowing her to have such breadth of experiences at Illinois.
“It has given me the freedom to pursue things that I want to do rather than just things that I had to do,” she said.
Kelleher’s advice to students: “Just jump into it. Get involved right away. I have found that if I don’t go to the first meeting for something, I’m never going to go. Try new things. Get out of your comfort zone. That’s where you really learn about the world while learning a lot about yourself along the way.”
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If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Mike Koon, writer/editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-1256.