For the third consecutive year, the GEL Program is donating funds to MIT Edgerton Center’s engineering project teams whose members have successfully completed GEL’s one- or two-year Engineering Leadership development program while actively practicing the leadership and teamwork skills learned in GEL.
To kick off this year’s donations, GEL recently presented a check for $9,000 to MIT Motorsports, which had 14 GEL students (listed below) actively participating this year.
Pictured (l-r): Eric Zhou (GEL, team captain), Claudius Tewari (GEL), Liong Ma, Caroline Jiang, John Feiler (GEL Engineering Leadership Specialist & Student Programs Coordinator), Leo McGonagle (GEL Executive Director), Veer Jhaveri
See the entire Motorsports team here.
2024-25 Motorsports GEL Participants:
Garrett Blosen, Course 2, GEL 1; Olivia Chen, Course 2, GEL 1; Nicholas Duran, Course 2, GEL 1; Faris Elnager, Course 2, GEL 2; Alexandra Feland, Course 2, GEL 1; Kelsey Fontenot, Course 2A, GEL 1; Megan Gupta-She, Course 22, GEL 2; Selinna Lin, Course 6-2, GEL 1; Sehar Lohawala, Course 2, GEL 2; Wasim Pyadee, Course 2, GEL 1; Nicole Schmidt, Course 3, GEL 1; Henry Smith, Course 2, GEL 2; Claudius Tewari, Course 2A-6, GEL 1; Eric Zhou, Course 2A-6, GEL 1
Congratulations to all of our 2025 GELumni! Great to see everyone at the GEL Completion Ceremony on May 14. Contact Eileen to request photo of you receiving your certificate. Grads- send us your new email and stay in touch!
Getting back into ELL mode… For our first Engineering Leadership Lab (ELL) of the spring semester, we challenged each team to design, build, and test a working prototype of a sorting device, using only available materials, under time pressure.
About Engineering Leadership Lab
GEL’s highly innovative weekly Engineering Leadership Lab (ELL) provides a “playing field” that serves as the core of our students’ engineering leadership development. Students participate in immersive, team-based activities designed to challenge their assumptions and hone their leadership, teamwork, and communications skills. Each ELL focuses on one or more of the Capabilities of Effective Engineering Leaders, with active participation by engineering industry leaders, who also share their real-world experiences. These activities provide opportunities for students to lead their peers and serve on teams, while fostering growth and learning individually and within their team.
The bridge project was a highlight of GEL’s four-day Project Engineering course during IAP. Student teams tackled the challenge of designing a bridge to precise specs and building a prototype with real materials under intense time pressure. Instructors and GEL alums played the roles of govt officials. The annual course gives students a solid introduction to project management principles, methods, and tools in a realistic context.
What better way to spend part of IAP than developing a climate control system for an electric vehicle. The challenge for students taking GEL’s Engineering Design & Rapid Prototyping course was to design a system that quickly heated/cooled the cabin and filtered air more cleanly than traditional vehicles, while not using too much electricity. Teams proved their concepts by building and testing multiple prototypes, then presented their solutions to an “automaker” panel.
GEL’s highly innovative weekly Engineering Leadership Lab (ELL) provides a “playing field” that serves as the core of our students’ engineering leadership development.
Students participate in immersive, team-based activities designed to challenge their assumptions and hone their leadership, teamwork, and communications skills. Each ELL focuses on one or more of the Capabilities of Effective Engineering Leaders, with active participation by engineering industry leaders, who also share their real-world experiences. These activities provide opportunities for students to lead their peers and serve on teams, while fostering growth and learning individually and within their team.
These images are from the Structured Communications ELL.