From Composites to Competition: Grad Student Wins at Dance Championship

University of Maryland graduate student Colleen Murray developed more than an interest in materials engineering when she was young—she also started Irish Step Dancing at just five years old. Once she started college however, she took a break from dancing to focus her energy on engineering, completing her B.S. in mechanical engineering and M.S. in materials science and engineering at the University of Delaware.

After arriving at the University of Maryland to pursue her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, she decided to pick up her dance shoes once again as a break from the rigors of academic life.

“Dance has always been an outlet for me because it uses a very different part of my brain,” explained Murray. “I decided to find a studio and started formal classes again at the Teelin School of Irish Dance in January 2020.”

By July of that year, Murray went to her first nationals’ competition and earned 7th place. Since then, she has been training year-round for both solo and team competitions.

Her hard work and perseverance paid off. This summer, she took third place in the solo category at the 2024 North American Irish Dance Championships—outdancing more than 80 competitors—and was a member of the first-place winning group in the team category.

“That win was so incredible to share with a collection of women that I had been training with for the last two years,” added Murray. “It was a culmination of a lot of hard work finally paying off.”

Beyond the dance floor, Colleen Murray is a distinguished student specializing in the energy absorption capabilities of additively manufactured honeycomb structures, lattices, and syntactic foams for crashworthiness applications. She is also an active member in both national and regional levels of the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE)—mentoring fellow students, chairing the National Young Professionals Committee, and participating in regional and national events.

Her research, conducted under the guidance of Aerospace Engineering Professor Norman Wereley in the CORE Laboratory, aims to enhance the safety and performance of materials used in critical engineering applications, and she is a 2023 Vertical Flight Foundation Scholarship recipient.

“None of this would have been possible without the support of my advisor, Dr. Wereley,” said Murray. “He's very understanding of my passion, and he allows me to adjust my work schedule so that I can balance both.”

Published July 25, 2024