By Neil Nachbar
When Ian McElroy graduated from the University of Rhode Island in May 2019, he became the most recent engineer in his family and the latest to continue a special family tradition.
At commencement, McElroy’s parents presented him with a college ring, customized to represent his bachelor’s degrees in ocean engineering and French, which he completed through URI’s International Engineering Program (IEP).
“I grew up seeing my grandfather wear his college ring from the University of California, Berkeley, and my dad wear his ring from the United States Naval Academy,” said McElroy, who is from Edgewater, Maryland. “It was important to my family that I carry on the tradition.”
The ocean engineering side of the ring depicts the pointy end of a trident inside a gear, with a compass in the upper right-hand corner. The URI seal adorns the French side, surrounded by some filigree. The words “University of Rhode Island” circle a blue gem on the top of the ring.
Following in the footsteps of his father and other members of his family, McElroy is proud to become an engineer.
“My dad inspired me the most to become an engineer,” McElroy said. “He majored in economics at the Naval Academy, got his master’s in physics at the Naval Postgraduate School, recently got his second master’s in systems engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and is now pursuing his doctorate in systems engineering from George Washington University.”
McElroy’s grandfather is an entomologist. His uncle and godfather are engineers.
Prior to graduating from URI, McElroy received two impressive job offers. One position was with a startup robotics company in Paris, France. The other was for the Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) in La Spezia, Italy. CMRE is considered the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) knowledge repository for maritime science and technology.
“My interest in the IEP and working abroad stems from growing up in a military family and moving around a lot,” said McElroy. “When I was really young, my family lived in Japan for two years. But it was when we lived in Tunisia in North Africa for four years that I started to learn French. That’s why I looked for opportunities to work as an engineer while speaking French.”
McElroy ended up picking the job at the startup company, Stanley Robotics, where he’ll start working as a software engineer on Aug. 5.
“The work with CMRE was exactly in line with my interests and studies at URI,” stated McElroy. “Working with NATO would have been prestigious and I would have made some great contacts. However, it was a six-month research position with no guarantee of continuation after the initial assignment.”
At Stanley, McElroy will be in charge of testing, programming and implementing new functionality of the robots. One of the functions of the robots will be to autonomously park and return cars to their owners at airports.
“I’ll manage the deployment of the robots, perform field tests of the entire system on site in Lyon and London, and verify their operational performance on site with the customer,” said McElroy. “Even though it isn’t marine robotics, my work with land-based robotics will give me more experience as an engineer. I think I’ll be able to return to marine robotics pretty easily in the future.”