Tapp Featured on Engineer Girl Site

Materials Science and Engineering undergraduate Maeling Tapp has been profiled on Engineer Girl (www.engineergirl.org), a website run by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Engineer Girl provides information on disciplines and careers, sponsors contests, profiles women in engineering majors and working the field, and offers parents and students the opportunity to have their questions answered by participating engineers.

Tapp tells Engineer Girl that even as a child, she was very curious about how and why things worked, and would often build things or take apart electronic equipment and games. Although she was always a fan of her math and science classes, she didn't think about a career in engineering or even meet a female engineer until her junior year in high school. She was encouraged to try a summer engineering program at the University of Maryland, and the rest is history!

Tapp is very active in both the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Clark School. Last year, she served as the secretary of the UMD chapter of the Society of Women Engineers, co-chair of the Pre-Collegiate Initiative Committee of the National Society of Black Engineers, and the secretary of the Materials Engineering Student Society (MatES). She is also an accomplished student who has won the ASM International Morgan L. Williams Scholarship and an ExxonMobil Scholarship, and has been named a NASA Motivating Undergraduates in Science and Technology (MUST) Program Scholar.

After graduation, Tapp, who is pursuing a minor in Spanish, plans to study abroad in Argentina, then pursue a Master's degree and ultimately a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering. She would one day like to head her own materials research group at a university or government laboratory.

You can read the complete profile and learn more about Tapp at the Engineer Girl website.