Junior wins prestigious award

By Johanna Mitchell

Junior Casey Kute was one of 54 engineering students in the nation to receive the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, making her the first student at Santa Clara to do so in institutional memory, according to Richard Osberg, director of the office of student fellowships.

"I thought I was a huge long-shot," Kute said, though she added that she has excelled in math and science since high school and received two grants for independent research this past summer -- the Provost Junior Research Fellowship and the Jack Kuehler Undergraduate Research Program -- which allowed her to pursue her passion in robotics.

The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program, whose board of trustees includes Sen. John McCain, was established by Congress in 1986. Its awards are distributed annually to qualified science, mathematics and engineering students who intend to pursue careers in those fields. Out of 1,110 applicants, 317 undergraduate students from a variety of disciplines were honored for the 2007-2008 academic year.

It was Kute's robotics research, she said, that helped her gain an edge on the competition when it was time to apply for the Goldwater award. Giving students the opportunity to work in the robotics lab as undergraduates, she said, is something few universities in the nation offer.

"The best part about Santa Clara is the fact that they focus on the undergraduate," Kute said.

After high school, Kute applied to 15 schools, was accepted to 13 and won scholarships to 11. In the end, choosing the best school proved to be a long process. It was only after a college tour spanning the West Coast that Kute made her final decision. Without calling ahead, she would walk into campus engineering buildings in pursuit of a professor to speak to, she said.

"If I can't find faculty members hanging out, willing to take two minutes to talk to a prospective, how easy is it going to be when I'm a student?" she said.

Then she dropped the bomb, asking about her odds of working in robotics as an undergraduate, a request she says most schools were not very receptive to, but something she refused to compromise.

"This is what I'm really interested in," she said, "and I don't want to have to wait four more years to start doing research."

When Kute arrived at Santa Clara, her luck changed. In what she called "random chance," she wandered into the engineering office where Timothy Hight, chair of the mechanical engineering department, happened to be available.

"(Kute) had a path in mind, and she was looking for a place that would allow her to do the things she wanted to do," said Hight, who remembers their first encounter almost as vividly as she does.

What immediately stood out about Kute was her "enthusiasm, her maturity and her sense of purpose," he said.

Hight was able to connect her that day with Christopher Kitts, associate professor and director of the Robotic Systems Laboratory. Unfazed by her request to work in the robotics laboratory as an undergraduate, Kitts told her to come see him in the winter, after she had figured out college life, she said. If she was still interested in staying at Santa Clara, Kitts promised to get her on a project.

He was "true to his word," Kute said. She has been working in the lab since her freshman year. The two grants she received last summer gave her the opportunity to work full-time as an independent researcher in the RSL, where she worked on adapting small, commercially available robots for urban search and rescue purposes.

The use of robots in hazardous environments is something that has interested Kute since her sophomore year of high school, she said, when the events of Sept. 11 shook the nation. Kute said the tragedy really hit home for her, even though she didn't know anyone who lost their life in the attacks.

"I remember exactly where I was and everything that was going through my mind," Kute said. She recalls feeling saddened by what she called the "unnecessary loss of life" of firefighters and other rescuers rushing into the buildings and never coming out.

"So I started thinking, what if they had robots, and they could send a robot in," she said. "Then, you lose the robot. OK, that's a huge amount of money, but you can just build another one. You can't replace human life."

This passion for helping others may be what drives her, but what helps Kute achieve her goals is her initiative.

Osberg remembers Kute and three other engineering honors students approaching him, asking to discuss scholarship opportunities .

He worked with them on tailoring their resumes for their respective career paths, Kute said, and encouraged them to conduct research.

It was Osberg who recommended that Kute apply for the Goldwater scholarship.

Osberg described Kute as a "very bright, articulate, interesting person with a real passion for robots," and said the competitive Goldwater Scholarship has been an indicator in the past of students who will go on to make significant contributions to society.

A friend notified Kute that she had received the award in early April. Kute, working in the RSL at the time, said that she was in a fitting location for the award, which was an honor not only for her, but also for the engineering department and the university.

In August 2006, Santa Clara's school of engineering was ranked among the top 50 engineering schools in the country in the U.S. News and World Report rankings. Kute serves as an ambassador for the department, said Hight, and she speaks to prospective students.

"This is where I wanted to be, and it's turned out perfectly. It's exactly what I wanted," said Kute, who mentioned the department's availability of resources, friendly and supportive faculty and freedom given to students to pursue their own ideas and innovations.

Osberg said he hopes that the award is encouraging for students and faculty alike and that it will show them that Santa Clara students are capable of being in the national spotlight, though the school doesn't have a tradition of encouraging students to apply for this type of awards.

"The really mportant thing for me is to celebrate Casey's accomplishment," Osberg said. "It's nice for the institution, but it's her work, it's her thought, it's her effort that really was the key to her success. I think that deserves a lot of recognition."

Osberg also said it is important for faculty to realize how important their role is in encouraging students to reach their potential.

The solid foundation of Santa Clara's undergraduate program will serve Kute well in graduate school, Kute said, and she is planning to apply to several postgraduate programs, including Santa Clara, Stanford University, the Massachusetts Insitute of Technology and the University of South Florida.

Kute's future beyond her education, she said, is a little more unclear, though she plans on staying under the "broad umbrella of robots in hazardous environments." This could include either urban search and rescue or even future NASA projects in space exploration, she said, remembering vividly her reaction to watching coverage of the Mars Rovers on television.

For now, Kute is focusing on receiving the full amount the Goldwater scholarship gives -- $7,500 a year -- and in the meantime plans to stick to what she does best.

"I'm an engineer -- through and through," she said.

Contact Johanna Mitchell at (408) 554-4546 or jjmitchell@scu.edu.