Emily Gilmore

Emily Gilmore had an immediate attraction to industrial engineering. It was the first degree program she explored on Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering website. Seeing how the field involves applying math skills to making systems work better, it offered her the perfect combination of everything she wanted to do.

“I remember closing my laptop and walking into the kitchen to tell my mom that I was going to ASU and I was going to be an industrial engineer, no more questions asked,” says Gilmore, a third-generation Sun Devil.

For the past four years, she has taken advantage of opportunities both for herself and to help others — a mission she believes is a core principle of engineering.

“As engineers, our first and most important job is to care about people,” Gilmore says. “Sure, the problem-solving and creating technology is super cool, but it needs to add positive value to people’s lives.”

Outside the classroom, Gilmore sought opportunities to help high school and college students be successful. As a Fulton Ambassador, she guided prospective students to consider pursuing an engineering degree, and helped her engineering peers in her role as an undergraduate teaching assistant for the probability and statistics course IEE 380.

She also helped high school students from across the country in New York City through her work with the executive board of the ASU Supply Chain Management Association. There she helped students at a trade school through a program that taught supply chain concepts using writing and filmmaking.

Though she has enjoyed her engineering experiences at ASU — from conducting engineering research into the impact of artificial intelligence on human accountability in radiology departments to working as an engineering intern for numerous companies — she learned earning an engineering degree is hard work.

For those just starting on the path to a STEM degree, she passes on some advice from her mom: “You can’t microwave success.” In other words: get inspired, show up every day and persevere. It’ll take time, but it’s worth it.

Her own perseverance earned her support from the ASU Presidential Scholarship, Intel Scholarship, John A. and Helen R. Butler Scholarship, Lara Howard York Memorial Scholarship and Coleman Daniel and Zina Kuhn Scholarship.

Gilmore will begin another year of industrial engineering studies in the fall to earn a graduate degree through the Fulton Schools 4+1 accelerated master’s degree program. After that, she’s ready for whatever comes next.

“I am constantly amazed at how lucky I am to have been exposed to these opportunities in four short years. Each one has taught me so much about myself and what I’m interested in,” Gilmore says. “I feel excited and prepared to go into any industry after grad school!”

Read about other exceptional graduates of the Fulton Schools’ spring 2019 class here.