OLIVIA WANLESS

AUTODRIVE TEAM CAPTAIN

- Ashley O'Brien

Olivia Wanless is a senior at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan. She studies electrical engineering with a business minor. Kettering University is a co-op-based school. That means every three months, Olivia alternates between working at a company and going to classes. She works at an automotive supply company called Nexteer. There she fixes and maintains machinery on the factory floor.

Wanless also mentors young people interested in engineering, especially girls. She’s a team captain for the AutoDrive Challenge, a tutor, and a former president of the Society of Women Engineers.

WHAT EXPERIENCE INSPIRED YOU TO GO INTO ENGINEERING?

When I started high school, I figured out that I really liked math, which I had hated in elementary and middle school. My teacher suggested that I try engineering. It hadn’t even been on my radar.

I joined the LITES program at Kettering. (That’s Lives Improve Through Engineering & Science, a program for girls entering their senior year in high school.) There I took an optics class, and it was absolutely inspirational.

WHAT ABOUT ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING INTERESTS YOU?

We all have individual problems on the manufacturing floor, so each day I get to inspect something different. There are all sorts of interesting problems, and I am always learning.