Spring 2021 Outstanding Graduate: Darcy Wuhrmann

Darcy started his journey at SDSU knowing he was interested in engineering and music, and decided to focus on the former, without forgetting the latter.  Mechanical Engineering was the natural choice, saying that he, like many ME’s, grew up addicted to Legos, cars, and anything with wheels.  In his formative years, when asked what he wanted to study when he grew up, he would respond “Legos”. He would like to think that he got pretty close.  Born in Switzerland but raised in San Diego, Darcy had no reason to leave and every reason to stay (sunshine, among other things),  so he decided to spend his first four years at SDSU pursuing a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Classical Music.  At first, he was unsure what area of Mechanical Engineering most interested him, but by chance he started working at a medical device engineering firm, Flex Partners Inc., at the end of his second year.  What started out as a short-term opportunity to get some hands-on experience has turned into something greater–he never left and plans to continue working there after he graduates.  The hands-on nature of Flex, particularly time spent in the company machine shop, has complimented his coursework, bridging the gap between theory and reality.  This experience also focused his interest in Mechanical Engineering to the biomedical field, prompting me to enroll in numerous medical-device-related courses. 

When nearing the end of the bachelor’s program, he was itching for just a bit more, and found the 4+1 program to be a good fit.  He has spent his final year pursuing a MSME with an emphasis in Material Science under the expert guidance of Dr. Khaled Morsi.  The process of creating an experimental setup for the study of sintering with dual heating (induction and DC) has helped bridge that gap between theory and reality further, providing ample opportunity to apply knowledge gained through coursework at SDSU. Darcy says that he reflects fondly on the last 5 years of music making in the music department and problem solving in the engineering department and looks forward to starting his next chapter at Flex.