Jacob Milman, from Barrington, Rhode Island, has attended the University of Rhode Island for seven years and earned three degrees.

Milman began his journey in the international engineering program, earning bachelor’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering and German. “I lived abroad in Germany from 2022-2023–I got to travel Europe and work a cool job at Porsche AG,” said Milman. “My knowledge and interests nowadays lie in manufacturing, materials science, and human factors, but I have a soft spot for automotive engineering too.”

He advises new college students to not be afraid to not know what you want to do; before, during, or after college. “I’m still figuring it out,” says Milman. “Even if you try something that you end up hating, you’ve learned something useful.”

Milman credits URI for providing many opportunities to gain relevant experience and knowledge, between lab work, internships, and a chance to earn an advanced degree. He also interned at Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence and was an undergraduate research assistant for Associate Professor Valerie Maier-Speredelozzi in the Submarine Simulator Lab, as well as in the Digital Photomechanics Lab under Associate Professor Helio Matos.

It wasn’t always easy, and he’s especially proud of passing the heat and mass transfer summer class while working full time, and managing a two-hour round trip commute to school every weekday for three years. He found it was worth it at the end of the day. Not only did he meet his long-time partner at URI, he also just successfully defended his graduate thesis “Quiet Bunks,” a research study characterizing noise levels on ships and how to mitigate them with different materials for better sleep, done under advisor Maier-Speredelozzi, completing his master’s in Systems Engineering.

He is now working full time in the plastics industry as a process engineer, continuing to focus on materials science.