Materials student attends top industry conference via donor award

Morgan Scott, a master's student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, attended the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) Conference in Seattle on April 27–30. Her trip was made possible by the Master's Student Conference Travel Award, a gift from Robert and Sandra Sherman.

Why it matters

SAMPE is one of the premier conferences in the composites and materials processing field, drawing researchers, graduate students and industry leaders from across the country. For Scott, who has been eager to attend since her undergraduate years, the conference represented a long-awaited opportunity to bridge her academic work with the professional world she plans to enter.

What she learned

Scott attended a range of technical presentations, industry panels, and student competitions during the four-day event. Highlights included:

• A panel featuring women leaders in the composites industry, including CEOs and technical fellows, who shared career advice and encouraged students to ask questions and embrace nonlinear paths.
• A session on technology transfer from universities to industry, featuring voices from the University of Washington, a startup, and Boeing, discussing the qualification and commercialization of emerging materials research 
• Conversations with exhibitors working in material characterization, carbon fiber composite development and advanced manufacturing.
• A chance to reconnect with Boeing engineers and technical fellows she had worked alongside during previous internships.

The bigger picture

Scott came to the materials department from an aerospace engineering undergraduate degree at the U. of I., driven by hands-on composite manufacturing experience with the Illinois Space Society and undergraduate research on rapid, energy-efficient manufacturing of carbon fiber composite tubes via frontal polymerization. As a graduate student, she is conducting research under Professor Jeff Baur of the Department of Aerospace Engineering. 

Scott has completed four internships at Boeing — in Seattle, St. Louis and Mesa, Ariz. — working across composite fabrication and specialty materials on the research and development side of the business. She described her interest in bridging university research with industry practice, particularly in understanding how to integrate evolving materials into industry environments. Scott is planning to join the company full time after completing her master's degree.

She and fellow students recently launched a SAMPE chapter at Illinois, with an eye toward bringing more students to the conference in future years. Scott hopes to return next year to present a technical paper.

Message for the donors

Scott expressed deep gratitude to Dr. Robert and Sandra Sherman, whose gift made the award possible.

"This was an amazing opportunity and I'm very thankful for the award that I received, because I would not have been able to attend the SAMPE conference without it. I was able to listen to technical presentations from various researchers, talk to industry professionals, and speak to companies in the material and process industry. For someone doing their master's in materials science and hoping to have a career in industry, this was a really great opportunity to experience." - Morgan Scott

Illinois Grainger Engineering Affiliations 

Jeff Baur is an Illinois Grainger Engineering professor of aerospace engineering in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. He is affiliated with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and holds the Scott R. White Professor appointment in aerospace engineering.