Engineering America’s Future

Laura Bottomley, a teaching associate professor at NC State University, believes engineering is “a vehicle for the solution of every problem.”

“The biggest problems we have in the world today are not problems that belong to any one particular discipline,” she said. “But teaching people how to become critical and creative thinkers and problem solvers is what engineering is all about.”

Bottomley is the director of Women in Engineering — a program that encourages women to consider careers in STEM fields — and the Engineering Place — which seeks to educate North Carolina citizens, particularly K-12 students, about engineering.

With the imminent construction of the Engineering Oval on NC State’s Centennial Campus, the College of Engineering is poised to facilitate even greater levels of student and faculty collaboration, research and innovation in the coming years.

“I may not be able to solve the grand challenges of engineering, but I don’t have to. All I have to do is equip the next generation to take it the next step,” Bottomley said.