Kimberly Miller is a fourth year industrial engineering student who has brought together the engineering and human kinetics faculties for project work with the ultimate goal of improving public health. Kimberly began her research career through a research scholarship with engineering professor Dr. Jill Urbanic after her first year in the engineering program and chose to continue this research work through the Outstanding Scholars program during her second year. During this time, Kimberly contributed to ongoing projects involving mould optimization and additive manufacturing (3-D printing). "It was interesting-I was exposed to a lot and learned a lot. But I wasn't truly passionate about working with the moulds", Kimberly explained. When she entered her third year, Dr. Urbanic suggested she develop a project she was legitimately interested in. "Being so involved in bodybuilding and other sports my whole life, I've developed such a passion and curiosity for the way the body works and I knew immediately that I wanted to incorporate human kinetics into my engineering research work", Kimberly explained. Kimberly spent much of her third year learning about nutrition and weight loss and the available platforms for the public and recognized an opportunity for improvement.
"Weight loss applications available to the public today are generic and inaccurate-and I truly believe that this is a big reason why self-driven weight loss is so unsuccessful. I thought it would be really cool to spend the rest of my time in the Outstanding Scholars program developing a system that is able to better calculate and predict body composition and weight loss variables. I knew Dr. Urbanic was also interested in this subject area so when I proposed the idea to her she was all for it." Dr. Urbanic explained, "The system of systems approach that she wanted to take compliments the industrial engineering profession nicely. It was a matter of looking at all of the different models out there and figuring out which model is appropriate when-and this is a very nice industrial engineering problem." Dr. Urbanic has really helped Kimberly look at the project from an IE (industrial engineering) perspective and Kimberly was thrilled tohave been able to apply so many concepts I've been taught in class like programming, experiment design, research ethics, systems design and the engineering design process." Dr. Chad Sutherland, director of operations for the Centre for Human Performance and Health, came into the picture when Dr. Urbanic and Kimberly recognized a need for body composition-related experiment work. Dr. Sutherland has helped guide Kimberly's project and has given her the opportunity to use the BOD POD (body composition analysis tool) and other measurement tools to run her experiments. The trio hope to publish the experiment results in an academic paper and Kimberly hopes to continue to develop the weight loss system so that it can be brought to life in the form of a mobile application.
When asked what her future plans are, Kimberly mentioned that she had an interest in both academia and technical consulting. She has applied for an OGS scholarship to pursue a thesis-based masters in industrial engineering under the guidance of Dr. Urbanic. Kimberly is also in the final leg of an interview process with a FinTech (financial technology) consulting company for a position as a data scientist in their highly-saught-after graduate training program. "During all of my interviews I have talked extensively of my research work in the Outstanding Scholars program and I truly believe that this has been the "it" factor that has gotten me so far along in this recruitment process. Not a lot of undergrad-level students have the opportunity to do paid research work and very rarely are they given the opportunity to brainstorm, design and carry out their own project. Outstanding Scholars has done this for me-and I know that, without a doubt, this experience has and will propel me forward."