{"id":378982,"date":"2019-05-06T14:42:14","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T18:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=378982"},"modified":"2019-05-09T15:14:20","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T19:14:20","slug":"suman-kumar-international-opportunities-378982","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/suman-kumar-international-opportunities-378982\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineering an international career path"},"content":{"rendered":"

Making Their Mark<\/strong><\/a> is a Newscenter series of profiles celebrating members of Rochester\u2019s graduating class of 2019.<\/em><\/h4>\n
\n

Three questions
\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Favorite class?<\/strong> “Thermodynamics, taught by John Lambropoulos. \u201cHe\u2019s probably the best professor I\u2019ve ever had. He encourages us to discover solutions to problems on our own. He makes a topic even as difficult as thermodynamics interesting.”<\/p>\n

Favorite tradition?<\/strong> \u201cEngineering students are very collaborative. We have our little Facebook groups so that, if someone is struggling with an assignment, they just post the question and people are willing to help one another. This sense of togetherness that we \u201cmeches\u201d have is very unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

Favorite spot on campus?<\/strong> \u201cThe periodical reading room in Rush Rhees Library. It may sound boring, but I get a lot of my work done there.\u00a0 It\u2019s\u00a0 where most of the students go to study, not to waste time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Engineering and international relations might seem to have little in common. And yet, at Rochester \u201cstudents are open to think about the overlap between fields that seem incompatible,\u201d says Suman Kumar.<\/p>\n

Kumar, who is from Kathmandu in Nepal, has taken full advantage.<\/p>\n

During his four years, Kumar has attended a half dozen international development conferences; met several influential world leaders, diplomats, and Nobel laureates; rebuilt two schools destroyed by an earthquake in his native country; and still managed to complete a rigorous curriculum in mechanical engineering.<\/a><\/p>\n

The University paid his expenses so he could attend a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2016 as one of 250 youth delegates. That led to invitations to other conferences.<\/p>\n

Wendi Heinzelman, dean of the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences<\/a>, supported the launch of a USeed crowd funding campaign to rebuild schools. University funding paid the expense for Kumar and three other students to return to Nepal for the rebuilding project.<\/p>\n

Faculty members and on-campus employers made allowances for his trips overseas, and the University\u2019s open curriculum<\/a> enabled him to supplement his engineering studies with courses in economics and journalism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe flexibility and support the University offers us to pursue our academic and career interests\u00a0are some of its biggest strengths,\u201d Kumar says.<\/p>\n

Growing up in Nepal, Kumar questioned why a country so rich in natural resources still struggles to provide such basic necessities as reliable electricity. Like his father, he became a welder and machinist and then helped manufacture parts for Nepal\u2019s first aquaponics farm. After completing high school, he became an independent contractor, building machines for agencies in Nepal and for export to Europe.<\/p>\n

When a devastating earthquake struck Nepal in 2015, Kumar and his friends hurried to some of the most devastated areas, searching for survivors and retrieving bodies. A business colleague suggested building portable shelters for the homeless; before the monsoons arrived, the technology they developed was used to construct more than 5,300 shelters for 26,000 earthquake victims, Kumar says.<\/p>\n

He came to Rochester the following year to learn the theoretical underpinnings of engineering to improve the methods used back home. And still the images continued to come out of Nepal, showing children huddled out in the open to take classes because their schools had been destroyed. Kumar knew he needed to do more and launched the USeed campaign.<\/p>\n

In recognition of his outstanding community service beyond the campus, Kumar was named recipient of this year\u2019s Presidential Award for Community Service.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Kumar wants to be a policy maker in Nepal\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe skills I\u2019ve learned at the University of Rochester, being able to work with people of different disciplines, will be very helpful,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suman Kumar ’19 has attended a half dozen international development conferences, met Nobel laureates, rebuilt two schools destroyed by earthquakes in Nepal, and still managed to complete a rigorous curriculum in mechanical engineering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":286,"featured_media":379022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[26692,23312,19242,18632],"class_list":["post-378982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community","tag-class-of-2019","tag-department-of-mechanical-engineering","tag-global-engagement","tag-hajim-school-of-engineering-and-applied-sciences"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEngineering an international career path<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Suman Kumar '19 has met Nobel laureates, rebuilt two schools destroyed by an earthquake, and still managed to 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