When she was young, Gracie Bahr remembers sitting with a stack of papers and scribbling out the designs and schematics of a dream home. They were the sketches of a young girl’s dreams, but looking back, she remembers them as one of the earliest clues that someday she’d be engineering her own future.
Bahr (‘24) is now pursuing her Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MSME) at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) through an Integrated Undergraduate/Graduate program (IDP), an accelerated advanced degree process that will allow her to graduate with her advanced degree in as little as one year.
Image: Bahr presents her Lake Superior Wave Energy research at the International Network On Offshore Renewable Energy European Symposium in August 2024 in Aberdeen, Scotland.
“I just graduated last May with my bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering and minor in Material Science. And because of the IDP’s accelerated process, she said, “I'll graduate this coming spring with my Master’s in Mechanical Engineering.”
Bahr came to Duluth because of the right-sized campus that would let her get to know her professors and classmates, and the resources and research opportunities that come with a larger institution. She didn’t always know what route her degree would take, but UMD gave her the opportunity to explore. “I really like math,” she said, adding that it’s something she’s loved for as long as she can remember. “I'm interested in the practicality of taking math and applying it to real-world problems.” She just didn’t know where she would go with those interests.
Image: Bahr takes a selfie aboard the former US Coast Guard vessel Sundew on Lake Superior with her advisor and mentor Assistant Professor Craig Hill during one of the Large Lakes Observatory’s Freshwater Discovery Days.
UMD has offered her the chance to discover how to take that lifelong love of math and the desire to move beyond theory and put it into practice through an engineering degree. Moreover, she appreciated the options she could have as a mechanical engineer. “It gives me the general idea of what I want to do, and the flexibility to mold that and explore the areas that I am interested in.”
“I've liked everything I've done,” she said. “There are just so many things that I have had experiences in–I did an aerospace internship, and then research in sustainable textile recycling, and now renewable marine energy.”
Before coming to UMD, she knew she wanted to get her college education as fully funded as possible. “I didn’t know what I was going to do in college, but I knew that I wanted to be involved and I wanted to commit and I didn’t want to graduate with debt.” And so, she began that journey with intentional work. “I dedicated a ton of time to applying for scholarships.” She would end up receiving several.
“I worked super hard to get those, but they were so worth it,” she said. Between funding and her accelerated degree program, she’s found strong value at UMD. “It's really been a huge part of my academic career.”
Image: Bahr breaks down structural mechanics to assess a truss system’s stability and efficiency. Mechanical Engineering provides her with a wide variety of options for her career.
She’s used the time that those scholarships gave her wisely, injecting a spirit of discovery into everything she’s done at UMD. Since coming to campus, Bahr has explored all that Duluth and this campus have to offer, enjoying her time, and imagining the ways she might combine her passions and professions to form a degree and a career. She’s accompanied her studies with an impressive array of student organizations, clubs and activities that have ranged from supporting Bulldog Hockey on the UMD Hockey Cheer Team to leading women’s STEM advocacy groups on campus and beyond. For Bahr, UMD has been “a really good intersection between being small and making connections, but also being big enough to have resources, to be involved in things.”
Now, she’s looking to apply her studies and new-found knowledge and skills to explore how wave energy might help solve the sustainability problems of our future.
“ People can be so successful in any field,” Bahr said. “ Everybody is made for something different.”
Image: Gracie and her fellow researchers work with Associate Professor Abbie Clarke-Sather on the Fiber Shredder, a textile recycling machine. Photo: University of Minnesota Duluth