Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1543032
58 SMT007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2026 As the Student Board Member, you attend two virtual meetings and two in-person meetings throughout the year. Our in-person meetings were in Taipei, Taiwan, and Lake Tahoe, Nevada. They include networking events, and in Lake Tahoe we went golfing, which was another first for me. There's a dinner the night before the meeting and then the next day there is an eight-hour board meeting, which is pretty cool to sit in on, because as the Student Board Member, I got to provide my thoughts on the various topics being discussed. In Taiwan, I attended lunch with some Taiwanese elec- tronics industry leaders, which I really enjoyed. It is something I wouldn't have gotten to do otherwise. Honestly, I cannot think of a better time to have served in this role. I attended my first in-person board meeting right before the unveiling of IPC's rebranding to the Global Electronics Association. It was exciting to watch the transition firsthand and be part of the suspense leading up to the unveiling. When you were in a board meeting, did anyone ever turn to you and say, "Emily, from your per- spective, what do you think about this?" Yes, that happened in every meeting. They want perspective from someone who is younger and not as involved in the industry, or who has been on the education side of things. It's great because it allows me to give my insights. Can you give an example of what you were asked about? Most of the perspective I provided was based on my experience working in the different lab environments and other things I've been part of. A big challenge for students is the learning curve once they get to industry due to their lack of hands-on experience. You can learn a lot from a textbook, but until you apply that knowledge, you don't have that knowl- edge locked in. It's in one ear and out the other because there's no application. So, I frequently emphasized the impor- tance of opportunities for hands-on learn- ing, like labs in schools. Michigan Tech has a PCB fabrication lab, which is awesome for students. We have the Plexus lab right across the hall, where students can learn the assembly process for their PCBs. In the labs, students get to apply what they're learning in the classroom. However, many universities don't have such facilities. Do you believe the Association can have more influ- ence at the university level to encourage providing more labs for the applied, hands-on learning? Yes, it's important and I believe they are already involved in that effort. The students are the next gener- ation of engineers, so you've got to raise them up. Emily, to become the Student Board Member, you must be part of a Global Electronics Association student chapter at your university. Tell me about your chapter and how you got involved. A fun fact about the Michigan Tech chapter is that we were actually the first IPC student chap- ter. I attended a meeting during my freshman year, and it was exactly what I wanted to be involved in. I became the technical chair, where I took on the task of creating the circuit board designs for these blinky board events that we host. We try to do them each month. I don't know if you can see some of the boards up there on the wall behind me. I can see them. One looks like a pumpkin, a snow- flake, a leaf. I created a turkey this last semester for a Thanksgiving event. So, I started in that position, and I got to sit in on the e-board meetings. By my junior year, I became the chapter president. Our chapter has been very active this year. In these blinky board events, students can solder a PCB or learn how to use a pick-and-place machine, as well as a reflow oven, to populate a PCB. Our other events include guest speakers on industry topics that students are not typi- cally exposed to in coursework, such as PCB design, stackup, and signal integrity. Through the chapter, we had a group compete in the Bright Manufactur- ing Challenge this year, allowing for those students and a few other inter- ested chapter members to attend SMTA International. During this trip, we also toured Miller Electric and American Stan- dard Circuits.