Colin Russell

Hometown: Youngstown, Ohio

Expected Graduation: Fall 2023

Colin Russell is a Computer Engineering student from Youngstown, Ohio. He is graduating in December with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering with Computer Engineering Track and a Minor in Computer Science. Over the past four and a half years, he has strived to balance being a student, leader to others, and contributor to the workforce. 

As a student, he was recently inducted into the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Eta Kappa Nu honor society. Back in April 2022, he was chosen to be the recipient of the Richard H. McFarland Undergraduate Award for being a distinguished student within the Avionics Engineering Center as part of the FAA Joint University Program. At other times during his student journey, he was on the Dean’s List and attended retreats with professors for the School of EECS. Student organizations in which he held memberships to include IEEE, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), the Cultural Italian American Organization, OU Catholics, and the Billiards Club. 

As a leader, Colin was elected and served as president of OU’s IEEE chapter for two years. He was also selected to be an ambassador during his junior and senior years. While he was IEEE President, Colin held biweekly meetings often consisting of presentations from guest speakers. Throughout his time as an Engineering Ambassador, he took part in events run by the college and tours to prospective students. During his second year of ambassadorship, he was elected and served as the Historian and Chair of the External Relations Committee. Colin managed the ambassador blog in which two articles highlighting events within the Russ College were published each month and began correspondence with the college’s media staff to provide the opportunity to publish articles written by ambassadors into the Russ College Newsletter. 

During Colin’s four and a half years at Ohio University, Colin strived to gain career experience. Beginning during the summer following his freshman year and continuing during most semesters, Colin worked as an Undergraduate Research Assistant for the Avionics Engineering Center to perform research funded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). At OU, the FAA Joint University Program (JUP) strives to implement airport monitoring by utilizing technologies including optical, LIDAR, and thermal cameras. The JUP is a partnership between Ohio University, MIT, and Penn State. Moving on to the summer following his sophomore year, Colin worked at Integrated Solutions for Systems (IS4S) in Beavercreek, Ohio as a Technical Analyst and Specialist Intern. After his junior year, he focused on the FAA JUP presented a high level overview of Ohio University’s multi-spectral sensor suite at the FAA Tech Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey to his colleagues along with FAA engineers as well as students and professors at MIT, and Penn State. During the winter break following the first of two falls in Colin’s senior year, he worked at Dependable Stamping in Cleveland, Ohio as a Production Engineering Intern. He gained experience with CAD and applied his software skills by creating a logging application to keep track of the factory’s yield from its new ARC Welder robot. After Colin finished up his senior spring semester, he worked at Nationwide as a Software Engineer Intern, specializing in backend API development. Colin’s last semester is Fall 2023 and he is currently an intern at Boeing in Heath, Ohio working as a Test and Evaluation Engineer. At Boeing, Colin contributes to engineering projects that aim to maintain the readiness of the Minuteman III missile. 

Following graduation, Colin plans on pursing a career in technology and enjoying time with his family and friends.