5 questions with Rebekah Revadelo ’24
To Rebekah Revadelo, “experiential learning” is more than a buzz phrase. When she graduates from the University of Dayton in December with a major in mechanical engineering and a minor in human movement biomechanics, she’ll be looking back on a couple of internships, work in a campus lab, a summer research project and a technical immersion in Kenya.
1 — How did it happen that you spent
this past summer in southern Indiana, 25 miles beyond Bloomington, at a naval base? The base (Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division) may not have ships, but it has lots of scientists and 
engineers doing research. I was part of a team doing visualization, creating animations of a process of people picking up parts. The animations were used at project review meetings to show assembly processes. My biomechanics minor was a fit with the human factors research.
2 — What drew you to UD?
I was interested in engineering, but I didn’t know what kind. UD’s Discover Engineering program was a ‘good’ fit. And I play clarinet. I wanted to do that and study engineering. Other schools allowed as how that was possible. At UD, I heard, “You definitely should do both!” So, I play clarinet in the marching band and the symphonic wind ensemble. And by the summer after my sophomore year, I was doing a research project in professor Robert Lowe’s Behavior of Advanced Materials and Structures Lab, working with 3D-printed elastomers with adhesive properties for soft robotic parts.
3 — Last year and this year you also are working in a campus lab. Doing what?
In the Empower Lab, I work with professor Megan Reissman on a study where clients with spinal cord injuries come in and we track their movements with motion capture and virtual reality trackers and then process that data.
4 — And off campus?
In spring 2023, I didn’t take any classes but worked 40 hours a week at NuVasive, which makes spinal implants. For several weeks I learned about laser etching (particularly for anterior cervical plates) by shadowing others and eventually working on the process myself. I implemented a new fixture to hold the parts in place and created programs for the laser to etch numbers and logos on various plate models. These had to be super precise; the surface area of the plates being etched was only a few millimeters thick.
5 — And out of the country?
During summer 2023, I was in Kenya with the School of Engineering Ethos Center, working with Dandelion, an NGO run and staffed by Kenyans, heavily devoted to rural health care for Kenyan women and children. It provides medical and educational services as well as advocacy. I not only observed the program but spent a week with a bioengineer fixing equipment. I visited schools to talk about health. And at a high school, I created a STEM workshop. Out of a water bottle and rubber bands, we made a ping-pong ball launcher.