Julie Sandberg

Julie Sandberg

August 22, 2007 - University of Wyoming student and electrical engineering major, Julie Sandberg was selected by the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) to receive their Scholar of the Year award. The announcement was made at the annual ACEC meeting in Washington, D.C. in May. The award includes a $10,000 scholarship for use during the 2007-08 academic year and a trip to the ACEC 2007 Fall Conference in Maui, Hawaii, for the official presentation. Prior to receiving the award, Sandberg was selected by the ACEC of Wyoming to receive one of three $2,000 scholarships granted for the 2007-08 academic year. ACEC of Wyoming is an association of 67 companies providing engineering and surveying services in Wyoming.

Sandberg, a graduate of Albin High School, is involved in activities within the College of Engineering and Applied Science and on campus. She is an active member of Tau Beta Pi, involved in the Delta Delta Delta sorority, and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) student chapter. She enjoys math and science, and before college she attended a few academically-related camps that inspired her to study engineering. “One particular camp that led me down this path was the Engineering Summer Program (ESP) at the University of Wyoming, where I got to interact with 29 other high school students interested in engineering, and college professors who taught us short courses in basic engineering concepts,” says Sandberg.

During her spare time Sandberg enjoys reading novels, running, and learning about the latest scientific research and technology development. For the past three summers she has participated in three different internship programs. After her sophomore year of college, she conducted research at the University of Central Florida’s College of Optics and Photonics where she designed and built a working laser wavefront sensor. Following her junior year, she attended the NASA Academy at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, where she studied the earth’s magnetosphere, listened to many guest speakers, visited NASA centers and aerospace companies, and completed a group project with the other 19 interns selected for the program.

This summer she worked in the robotics group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where she helped develop the electronics system for a Martian tunneling rover prototype. She is extremely interested in space exploration, and hopes to work for NASA someday to develop technology similar to what she is doing currently. After her last semester at UW this fall, she plans to attend graduate school in electrical engineering.

Sandberg’s family resides in Albin, Wyoming, a small farming community 42 miles northeast of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Her greatest support comes from her family including her parents Terry and Joanne Sandberg, sister Lori Sandberg, (also a UW College of Engineering and Applied Science student) and grandmother Bertha Sandberg. “The people in Albin are more like family than friends,” says Sandberg, and she has enjoyed getting to know everyone while growing up in the close-knit community.

ACEC of Wyoming, like all ACEC State Member Organizations, is allowed to sponsor one applicant each year for one of two scholarship awards in the amount of $10,000 and $7,500. The scholarship program is administered by the ACEC Committee of Fellows Scholarship Committee. This committee consists of three individuals who grade the applicants based on a relatively strict set of grading criteria. Students are sponsored based on leadership, academics, and activities.