Oh, The People You'll Know: Kate Ferreira

6/11/2020 Amanda Maher

Written by Amanda Maher

Kate Ferreira
Kate Ferreira
Kate is an absolute treat to be around. She is always humble about her many accomplishments and skills. No stranger to putting in the time and even late nights that come along with our study, she is always able to pull projects and work together and offer creative solutions to problems of many kinds.

She attended the University Laboratory High School, and she was able to begin research on campus while she was still in high school. In Professor Taher Saif’s lab she worked on soft robotics projects, creating molds with air pockets that could be pneumatically actuated. The research focus on campus was a big draw for Kate when she was deciding where she wanted to go to college.

As a freshman, Kate was excited by the many registered student organizations UIUC has to offer and was involved in Engineers Without Borders and the Bio Medical Engineering Society during that time. She decided to live in the learning living community in the Florida Avenue Residence Hall called WIMSE, Women in Math, Science, and Engineering. Through the LLC, Kate participated in an Undergraduate Research Initiative, a program specifically for students in learning living communities. She worked with Professor Deana McDonagh in Industrial Design on a project involving empathetic engineering and the role of empathy in design. The Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) played a large role in Kate’s college experience. Funded by the National Science Foundation, REUs give students an opportunity to do research part- or full-time over the summer with the bonus of room and board and a stipend.

The summer after her freshman year, Kate worked part-time as a lab tech in MechSE’s Micro Nano Mechanical Systems lab (also known as a cleanroom) and participated part-time in bioengineering research. Her project focused on the isolation of circulating endothelial cells with the motivation of possibly using the cells as a marker for cancer. She learned crucial bioengineering research techniques, including the proper way to conduct cell cultures and the study of flow cytometry. Another aspect of her work in the cleanroom involved replacing chemicals and cleaning floors, and she was also responsible for projects within the lab, like making plans for the new nitrogen line to run through the room. She worked on specialized micro fabrication projects. All of the experiences she gained in the cleanroom honed her skills to obtain microfabrication research positions, internships, and a full-time job.

The summer after her sophomore year, she continued her work with the REU, this time in MechSE with Professor SungWoo Nam. The objective of her project was to create an electrically conductive and flexible soft material, similar to PDMS but capable of carrying a current. She worked with many interaction and mixtures for this project. Sadly, this project did not yield the expected results, but Kate was not afraid to share this fact. She learned that sometimes you can try everything you can imagine, but the project does not work—but this is a natural part of research. You can take it into your hands by scrapping it and taking a new approach and trying new things.

In the Summer of 2019, she had an internship at a Champaign startup called Inprentus. Started by an Illinois Physics professor, the company creates blazed diffraction gratings for synchrotrons. Kate was responsible for installing mechanical updates to their equipment and running new tests to check their function. Inprentus focuses on research and development, and Kate appreciated the chance to work in an environment where the company was always trying new things.

All of her work in microfabrication gave her the skills to be qualified for a job as a Process Development Engineer for Texas Instruments. She will be working on the Digital Light Processing (DLP) team.

Alongside her research and lab work, Kate finds peace and emotional release in art. She took an elective in drawing and painting and has also been known to create intricate doodles as pencil drawings—her preferred media. Kate’s joyfulness lights up a room as soon as she walks in. Her support and care for her work and those around her is a wonderful gift that I have been fortunate to enjoy as her friend. I am very excited to see the wonderful things to come in her future.


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This story was published June 11, 2020.