ENG-23-4200-I3-Magazine_Final Version

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USD ENGINEERING

Not Your Average Engineer

processes that will make things at least a little bit easier.” That’s when Clawson decided the funeral services industry needed Clozure — an end-of-life concierge service marketplace. Clozure uses app-based technology along specially trained Clozure concierges to help clients navigate the end-of-life process and determine which products and services are best for families. The con cierge team customizes celebrations of life for clients who aren’t interested in the traditional funeral experience. Tom Sizemore was their first client. With nearly two decades of business experience, Clawson admits, “I knew a little bit about a lot of things, but there were a lot of things I didn’t know, par ticularly on the technical side.” Pursuing the MITE degree gave him the business, technology and engineering background he need ed to pursue the idea. Clawson now sees a future focused on compassion within the end-of-life process — Clozure positively impacts clients, ensuring the experience is less stress ful for families and more about hon oring those we love. For Ringhof, Thomas and Clawson, their journeys may be very different from traditional engineering paths, but one thing is certain — the impact they are having is redefining what it means to be a Changemaker Engineer.

“The trick to having

by Allyson Meyer F

good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts.

rom global policy to fashion to entrepreneurship, gradu ates from USD's Shiley-

that first inspired this gifted engineer to pursue a nontraditional path. Since then, it has been a journey of explora tion, something he credits USD for instilling in him through the diversity of classes he was offered. It was the skills acquired in his engineering courses that helped him understand the technological component of his work and the big picture concepts from courses in ethics and philosophy that have helped him see the world through a unique, global perspective. “I’m very thankful I’m not only an engineer … and not only seeing these things through an engineering mind, but that I try to think about these big ger questions,” says Ringhof. “I think USD was really helpful in triggering this curiosity.” It is a curiosity Ringhof knows will be a constant in his work to address issues like disinformation, polariza tion and other global issues on social media platforms. For him, it’s his way to “make our societies more demo cratic, liberal [and] fair.” or Tabitha Thomas, a 2018 mechanical engineering graduate, it was the quest for a creative outlet that led to her lifestyle and fashion influencer account, Pumps and Protractors. After graduating from USD, Thomas pursued positions within de fense and aerospace companies and today works in the nuclear energy F

Marcos School of Engineering are breaking through the traditional engineering mindset — carving out intriguing and meaningful career paths along the way. For Julian Ringhof, a 2015 mechan ical engineering graduate, it has been an exciting path from professional soccer fields in the United States to a graduate program at the University of Cambridge to where he is today as a policy officer for the European Commission. In this role, Ringhof focuses on the global impact of the European Union’s social media platform regulations. It is an interest in the intersection between technology and global policies

TABITHA THOMAS

The trick is to get more parts on the table.”

field. But she knew she wanted more. In 2019, she officially launched the influencer account and has watched it grow to around 80,000 followers. She devotes weekends and evenings to this endeavor, which combines her love for fashion and engineering. For those who wonder about the connection between her education and fashion, Thomas says the techni cal skills she learned at USD help with the fundamentals of running her blog, ensuring optimization and even consid ering user-centered design principles in connecting with audiences. In all, she credits USD for fostering the confi dence she needed to express herself and she likes to point out the importance of finding careers that are the right fit. “Engineers can be creative, they can

be fun, [they can] dress however they want, but they can also be good at the job and at what they do,” she says. “There’s no one format for who is an engineer — it can be anybody.”

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or Christopher Clawson, a 2023 Master of Science in Innovation, Technology and

Entrepreneurship (MITE) graduate, his journey began with unexpected loss. The death of his older brother was an awakening for this entrepreneur, who describes the aftermath as existing in “crisis mode.” Planning the funeral allowed him little time to grieve. “There’s nothing that will make the sudden loss of a family member anything less than terrible,” he says. “But we could create systems and

— Author Steven Johnson

JULIAN RINGHOF

CHRISTOPHER CLAWSON