Engineering solutions on campus and beyond

Scientists and students have routinely employed wind tunnels to explore how air flows over and under an aircraft’s wings. But the problem with wind tunnels, explains mechanical engineering major Shakira A. Ramos ’02, is that air is invisible.  In Ramos’s senior design project, she will use an innovative alternative device, a kind of water tunnel into which dyes can be injected so that Ramos can actually see the flow streamlines, which are so important to developing efficient, high-lift wings. The project is noteworthy, according to Ramos’s adviser, Associate Professor of Engineering Joseph L. Palladino, and not only because Ramos will be grappling with advanced techniques in wing design. Ramos’s project, he believes, will be a strong contender among those of other Connecticut college students to win a $2,500 NASA Undergraduate Fellowship grant. “I am really excited to be working on a proposal that could receive funding from NASA,” says Ramos. “Mainly because I will be doing research in a field that I would love to continue working in after I graduate.”

For Ramos, Trinity and engineering have always gone hand-in-hand. She was introduced to both during her junior year in high school in Windsor, CT when she participated in the United Technologies-Trinity College Engineering Initiative, a program that offers hands-on engineering research experience to secondary school students. Since enrolling at Trinity, Ramos has contributed to both the field and the academic department at the College. She has served as president of Trinity’s chapters of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). This past summer she was a teaching assistant for the Connecticut Pre-Engineering Program (CPEP), which seeks to encourage women and minority students’ interest in math, science, and technology, as a prelude to higher education in those fields. On campus, her academic work has impressed the engineering faculty, which selected her to receive the local ASME scholarship last year. Palladino affirms that she is an excellent student who is “fully engaged in classes and asks important questions.”

Ramos says, “I like challenges and finding ways to solve them, and that is why I think engineering is so appealing to me.” Engineers, she observes, also tend to work in teams, often with people in other fields or subspecialties. She says, “I also love to learn from others and hear their ideas on different ways to solve the same problem.”

A campus contributor

Taking on challenges as a leader and working well as a team player have been hallmarks of Ramos’s entire Trinity career. Much of her energy has been focused on promoting cultural awareness and diversity on campus. Ramos, whose family comes from Puerto Rico, was for two years a leader for the PRIDE program, through which older students of color offer support and mentorship to first-year peers. A member of the Multicultural Affairs Council, she has been vice president of La Voz Latina since her sophomore year. She was instrumental in the development and design of the Latino cultural house, which opened at 69 Vernon Street last fall with Ramos as its first caretaker. Ramos is also a senior admissions associate who interviews individual applicants to the College and participates in group question-and-answer sessions. She views her work for the admissions office not as a matter of “recruiting” minority students, but rather as “identifying students who can contribute” to the Trinity community. She says her main message to prospective students centers on reciprocity: “It’s not just coming to Trinity but getting involved—not just taking from Trinity but giving back to Trinity.” 

Ramos chose Trinity because she believed the College would offer her plenty of opportunities to get involved and to effect change both on campus and in the Greater Hartford community. Through La Voz Latina and through the University of Hartford-Trinity College chapter of the Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority, Ramos has participated in a number of community service initiatives:  She has tutored students who are at risk for dropping out and has made presentations at middle schools and high schools with the goal of encouraging young women to go on to college. In October, she was among a number of students who helped to build a playground at the Learning Corridor. “I’m from the Hartford community,” says Ramos, “and I want to give something back and be a role model, especially for those students who don’t have a lot of role models.” 

Dean of Multicultural Affairs Karla Spurlock-Evans marvels at Ramos’s ability to achieve a strong academic record while simultaneously distinguishing herself in so many venues outside of the classroom. 

“She’s just everywhere, but somehow she manages to keep everything in balance,” Spurlock-Evans says. 

Ramos’s leadership, in fact, goes well beyond the clubs and organizations she belongs to, according to Director of Student Activities Darrell Claiborne. Two years ago, Claiborne hired Ramos to be a building manager in Mather Hall. Building managers, he explains, supervise Mather Information Desk personnel, study hall monitors, and other student employees and are in charge of the building on the evenings and weekends when administrators go home. Now a senior building manager, Ramos is responsible for scheduling the other building managers, assisting with the payroll for nearly 100 employees, and training new employees. She is thorough and capable, says Claiborne, and yet “she’s one of the most humble, down-to-earth individuals you’re ever going to meet.”

When Trinity’s Office of Community and Institutional Relations nominated Ramos for the Promesa Award for Youth, which is given by the Connecticut Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission to a Latino/a between the ages of 12 and 24 who has made significant contributions to the Latino community in the state, Claiborne wrote a letter supporting the nomination. He stated, “She is creative, service-minded, deeply passionate about important social and academic values, and an outstanding citizen.” (Ramos was a second runner-up and the Commission urged Trinity to nominate her again next year.)

Claiborne predicts, “When she graduates, her presence will be sorely missed on this campus.”

 –Leslie Virostek