Board Profile
Steve Watkins
Speaker and Innovator
He lives on a 160-acre spread his family first settled in 1850, with heritage cattle keeping the fields clear. Steve Watkins is no homebody, however. His academic odyssey from high school science whiz to professor of electrical and computer engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology includes Capitol Hill fellowships and professional stints in Japan, Israel, and Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque.
“I’ve always tried to do different things,” says Watkins, a sensors expert and director of Missouri S&T’s Applied Optics Laboratory who has a zest for offering students fun, useful interdisciplinary experiences. Case in point: “My bridge,” as he affectionately calls Missouri’s first all-composite span. Installed on the Rolla campus in 2000 as a hands-on learning lab for civil, mechanical, aerospace, and electrical engineering students in Watkins’s smart materials and sensors course, the “smart” bridge continues to provide field experiences and yield data.
A longtime ASEE Campus Representative, Watkins considers the student ethics competition—launched at an ASEE section meeting in Rolla, in the early 2000s—to be one of his proudest accomplishments. The contest soon caught on with IEEE, in which Watkins is also active, as ethics became part of the engineering curriculum and accreditation criteria. Today, students all over the world participate in this real-world application of ethical decision making, safety codes, systems analysis, and presentation skills.
“One of the most satisfying parts of my job is seeing students be successful and follow up on their careers,” says Watkins. “I make them aware of opportunities and give them a little nudge”—like help with communication skills. A seasoned public speaker with a hint of humor in his voice, Watkins has been faculty adviser to Missouri S&T’s student chapter of Toastmasters since 1991. Engineers “have to be able to inform people,” he notes. “It’s not just about what you understand; it’s delivering it.”
Holder of a patent for neural network demodulators for an optical sensor, Watkins is editor in chief of THE BRIDGE, published by IEEE -Eta Kappa Nu, the electrical and computer engineering honor society. He also serves as a faculty adviser in IEEE’s aerospace and electronic systems chapter and the Beta Chapter of Tau Beta Pi. His extensive involvement in K-12 outreach includes 10 years on his local school board.
As Zone III chair, Watkins plans to get the sections together in the fall and underscore how the Society can help members professionally. Meanwhile, his own professional life will shift gears. In July, he begins a yearlong appointment as a distinguished visiting professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado.
Meet Your Staff
No Event is Too Much
By Nathan Kahl
Olha Samoilenko is ASEE’s Council Affairs Coordinator, providing support to ASEE’s institutional councils: the Engineering Deans Council, Corporate Member Council, Engineering Technology Council, and Engineering Research Council. Her job includes, among other activities, keeping track of elections and bylaws changes, assisting in council meetings, and helping to organize the annual events of each council.
Olha comes to ASEE from eastern Ukraine and the alphabetically challenged town of Dnipropetrovsk, on the Dnieper River. She got her first taste of the United States when she moved here in 2011 as an exchange student. Returning home to finish her master’s degree in management at Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, she kept up a long-distance relationship with her future husband, Hussain, who traveled to Ukraine in 2013 to marry her.
Despite having a different cultural background from her husband, who was born in Sudan, she says, “We have a lot of similarities in terms of our way of thinking; our mentality towards things is the same.” Further, she notes something true for all couples: “If you have respect for each other you can make the differences work,” she says, adding with a smile, “and patience as well.” Her mother-in-law, who lives in the Washington, D.C., area, has taught her how to prepare some Middle Eastern dishes. When asked if she ever tries to combine those with her own Ukrainian recipes, she cautions, “I would never let myself torture people like that.”
Olha’s experience in planning large-scale events outside of work assists her in preparing for ASEE activities. In Ukraine she was part of organizing a Guinness World Record-setting event, in which 350 bands and more than 1,800 solo artists sang continuously singing for 110 hours. She now helps plan the Washington-area Ukrainian festival, held each September.
In their free time, Olha and Hussain enjoy day trips around the capital region. In addition, she loves to make handicrafts, watch soccer, and fish. She has not yet, however, found an ice-fishing spot that compares with those back home.
Regarding ASEE, where she started in June 2015, she says, “I like the environment and that people are wiling to collaborate and help out. People here made me feel welcome right away and were very friendly.” She adds, “I like that my job allows me to take the initiative, and to apply my skills to projects with minimal supervision.”
While not exactly the same as organizing a singing marathon, ensuring all ASEE council activities are on the same page is no easy task, though Olha has shown herself to be more than up for the challenge.