Pioneers' Orr looking to improve lives through engineering

Platteville, Wis.- University of Wisconsin-Platteville track and field record holder Gwen Orr enjoyed math and science in high school. After a little research, she found out that engineering would be a good fit and decided to attend UW-Platteville due to the positive reputation of the engineering program. Her next decision was to join the track team, but for a different reason.

"Honestly, the only reason I joined the track team was to stay in shape," Orr said. "After I knew I was coming to UW-Platteville, I spoke with Coach Patti Laufenberg a few times. I didn't come into the track program having a lot of expectations for myself."

Now, the Deforest, Wisconsin native owns two UW-Platteville school records, breaking the 100- and 200-meter record during the outdoor season. She hopes to improve on these records in the 2022 season.

As an industrial engineer, Orr will have the responsibility to improve and make things more efficient. After COVID-19 cancelled her summer internship, she picked up a psychology minor to add an extra year of schooling.

"I wanted engineering experience before I graduated college," Orr said. "I made the decision to go to school another year after my internship was cancelled last year."

Orr is using her summer to get the experience she wanted before graduation in an internship at Exact Sciences in Madison, Wisconsin.

"I am super passionate about what Exact Sciences does," she said. "The main reason I wanted to do an internship here is the work they do with the research and screenings of colon cancer."

As a track athlete, Orr must work on technique to perfect her running skills to improve her times. As an industrial engineer and intern, she is tasked with the same job.

"Industrial engineering is a broader field of engineering," she said. "We take a process and try to improve it. One of my projects I am working on is a training program for a few of our tools at Exact. I have enjoyed reading and finding out the information and making it easier to understand."

Her willingness to ask questions and learn was something that Senior Director of Equipment and Process Controls Engineering Arun Sampath saw right away. "She was professional and very easy to talk to," he said. "She was confident in what she knew, but was not afraid to ask questions."

Sampath went on to credit Orr's knowledge of engineering to her coursework at UW-Platteville. "I personally have not worked with an engineering graduate from UW-Platteville," he said. "I am certainly impressed with her professionalism and more importantly her confidence. A lot of that comes from her believing she got all the right technical skills and knowledge from her coursework. That confidence that comes from her knowing her technical skills and being able to present it and stand by it is big time, and I am certainly impressed by it."

Making things easier on people is one of the reasons Orr wanted to be an industrial engineer, and with graduation in one year, she has thought about where she would like her career to go.

"I wanted to become an industrial engineer so I could help people," she said. "Any position with a company that has a really good vision, where I would be helping people is one I would be passionate about and love to work for them. It was one of the reasons I applied for this internship with Exact Science. They have a vision and all the employees are so passionate about what they do because they know what they are doing has a purpose."

At the beginning of the internship, Orr's supervisors gave her a list of projects to be completed. The projects ranged from designing a structure to allow a funnel to drain faster to writing training programs for employees of Exact Science to use.

"I really enjoyed creating the training programs for Exact's tools," Orr said. "The information is not right there for you; you have to seek it. It has been important to keep learning and growing with this company."

With the broad range in industrial engineering, Orr has been taking classes across all spectrums and credits her engineering materials class with helping her in this internship.

"It was a class about materials and certain metals," she said. "It was more of a mechanical engineering class, but I have been using a lot of the information I learned in class with what I have been dealing with here."

As an athlete, Orr is always trying to improve, and she is doing the same at her internship.

Sampath credits her athletic background for her growth as an engineer from day one. "From a technical front she is getting more and more involved," he said. "She is able to lead teams and contribute confidently when other engineers and technical experts are in the room. I have seen really good engineers struggle with general conversation; Gwen is well rounded. She can certainly interact with people, both at a technical level and a personal level."

"Typically, I work on my projects in the morning and then meet with my mentors so I can ask questions and they guide me through my first engineering experience," she said.

Coming in with no real expectations as a freshman, she will return for a final season on the track with the expectations to improve her records in both the 100- and 200-meter before graduating and making a similar impact in her workplace.