The Mason Mechanical Engineer

2 cents from Daniel Scott Mitchell

Philip and I particularly enjoy getting to catch up with alums doing great things, and we’d been trying to get Daniel Scott Mitchell on the show for a while.  Between stints at Form Labs, Tesla, Rivian, and now launching his own startup, Daniel’s career trajectory is inspirational.  He chatted with us to share some words of wisdom on perseverance, hard work, creativity, and making things happen.  Looking for more from him? Check out his podcast The Next Byte at https://www.thenextbyte.com/, his startup Takton.com, or connect with him by email at daniel@takton.com.

Transferrable skills - a crossover episode with Rachel Yoho

In this episode, we feature Rachel Yoho from the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning. She invited Philip and I to be on her podcast, Keystone Concepts in Teaching, and in the process we were fascinated to learn more about her engineering background and how she uses the skills she developed as an engineer in her day-to-day as Assistant Director of the Stearns Center, helping faculty improve their teaching and classroom effectiveness.

We’re all drinking dinosaur pee, and that’s ok.

In this episode I caught up with Brooke Mayer from Marquette. Water is essential for our survival. Prof. Mayer is doing high impact research on water quality and working closely with industry to make sure that research finds its way into improving access to safe, clean water. In this conversation we chat a bit about her research and also about the importance of communicating science research effectively. (For any listener interested in the book I mention in this chat, the full title is Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Joseph Aoun.)

Interesting people are interested

Phil and I recently had the opportunity to chat with Edwin Wallis from Maritime Academy Charter School in Philadelphia.  In this episode he shares some tricks of the trade for recruiting and coaching a rookie SeaGlide underwater robotics team. (Spoiler alert: they did really well!) Listen on to learn about the bright, future naval engineering workforce.  

Capstone Day 2025

Capstone Day 2025 was held in conjunction with the Department of Mechanical Engineering's 10th Anniversary Celebration on May 5th. As icing on the cake, the festivities took place in George Mason's brand new Life Sciences and Engineering Building, which is home to numerous instructional laboratories that provide our students hands-on learning experiences. Listening to this episode will give you a glimpse into the day; more information on our capstone design program can be found at: ⁠https://mechanical.gmu.edu/hands/senior-design-capstone⁠.