Norberta Lu started disassembling and rebuilding things at an early age. Today, she uses her skills to improve how things work.
By Martin Rowe, Senior Technical Editor, EE World
“I like to destroy things and rebuild them,” said Zhuofan (Norberta) Lu. Spoken like a true engineer. After all, who doesn’t like taking things apart?
Currently working toward an MS degree in robotics engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Norberta is interning for summer 2023 at Transaera, a Boston-area startup developing cooling systems that use less energy than today’s air conditioners. Norberta earned a bachelor’s degree from WPI in robotics and mechanical engineering in 2022.
What piqued Norberta’s interest in engineering? “My grandfather worked as a radar engineer for the Chinese Air Force. He taught me to take things apart to see how they worked. He also taught me gardening and farming as well as physics and chemistry.”
Norberta started her engineering career as a child by taking her toys apart. As she got older, she moved on to remote controls and small TVs. “Things that look magical are actually physics,” she said.
At Transaera, Norberta is working as a test engineer developing tests for the company’s prototypes. The cooling system is based on a novel material that absorbs moisture from the air. That lets the system cool more efficiently because it doesn’t first have to reduce humidity before it can cool the air. Heat generated from the system then dries the material for the next cycle. The test system Norberta worked on uses an anemometer and other sensors connected to an NI data-acquisition system and LabVIEW to measure the temperature, humidity, and pressure of the flowing air.
For her bachelor’s degree senior design project — Major Qualifying Project (MQP) in WPI speak — Norberta and her project partners Olivia Petropulos, Karina Mirochnik, and Hannah Brooks developed a free-space coupling system for laryngeal laser surgery. The project’s goal was to improve the process of coupling light to a customized thin fiber, which enables surgical laser steering while retaining enough optical power for desired tissue damage.
The photo from 2021 shows the project, which the MQP team had to complete during the COVID-19 pandemic, making the project even more of a challenge.
Given her lifelong desire to assemble and disassemble things, Norberta was driven to study engineering. She understands the value of diverse project teams. “People with different backgrounds approach problem solving differently,” she said, “especially when it comes to user needs. Diversity in project teams broadens the team’s perspective. Not only do you need different backgrounds, but you also need people with different skills to solve problems.”
To learn about universities and companies, Norberta attended open houses. While she’s seen universities come to high schools and companies come to universities seeking graduates, she still sees a lack of people from underrepresented communities attending, coming to learn what these organizations do.
As a student, project-team member, and as a working engineer, Norberta never hesitates to ask questions and will continue to do so throughout her career. “If you don’t know something, ask. There are no stupid questions. You’ll never know everything so always ask.”
Although she’s working for a startup developing more efficient cooling systems, Norberta’s passion is for designing and testing medical devices as she did with her MQP. Designing medical devices is what she’d do if she had unlimited time. While she’s not designing medical equipment now, she hopes to work in that field after graduating with her master’s degree in 2024.
Filed Under: Engineering Diversity & Inclusion
