Along with most of the other spring 2024 graduates, Marty Bathgate finished high school in the first months of the pandemic and began college with online learning and multiple COVID saliva tests each week.
“It made it hard for me to meet people and it was stressful to be constantly worried about getting sick,” they said. “But the saliva tests were a good excuse to get out of the dorm.”
That positive attitude is apparent in the way they approach life—recognizing the people who influenced them as well as the happy accidents that brought them to Illinois and opened doors to undergraduate research, and a clear career path.
Bathgate is from Carbondale, Illinois and remembers coming to campus for engineering open house a couple of times and to visit their brother who was majoring in civil engineering. And although their brother was one of the reasons they came to Illinois, it was primarily because of a fluke.
“I took one of the camps over the summer when I was in high school,” Bathgate said. “Before that, I was thinking mechanical, but that camp filled up, so they put me in aerospace instead. I came and had the best week ever. Oh, my God. Why would I ever do anything but aerospace?”
That summer, Bathgate put their newfound love for aerospace into action. They got a job at the local airport and got their pilot’s license the same year they got their driver’s license.
“At the airport, I got an employee discount and a national scholarship from the Experimental Aircraft Association that paid for my flight training. I always thought airplanes were cool, read about them, and watched YouTube videos, but I never considered aerospace as a major. The camp really put things together before for me.”
The camp was their first introduction to Professor Brian Woodard who was the camp instructor.
“I made sure I got in his AE 100 section. Then I took his spatial visualization class and had him for CAD as well. Oh, and I took his study abroad class and went on the spring 2023 trip to Brazil.”
Woodard is also how Bathgate learned about the NASA Space Grant Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, which became their summer job for the next two years and continued throughout the following academic year. Their primary responsibility has been to reduce, analyze and provide presentations of an extensive set of wind tunnel results on swept wing icing.
“I started to really notice the quality of Marty’s work when I observed their final Zoom presentation for the summer program,” Woodard said. “Their presentation exhibited an understanding of our research, the motivation, methods, and important results in a way I have seldom seen even from much more advanced graduate students. In fact, we used Marty's presentation as the basis for a presentation to introduce our research and the initial results to a group of Boeing engineers.”
At the end of their first year at Illinois, Bathgate received the H. Everett Sutter Passion for Flying Scholarship. This past year, their work in UROP earned them an Engineering Visionary Scholarship, presented in the spirit of the late Scott R. White’s deep commitment to providing opportunities for undergraduate research.
“I'm extremely grateful for the scholarships,” Bathgate said. “I can focus more on my schooling and buy my textbooks instead of just renting. Getting paid for UROP was very helpful, too, but getting to do research with Dr. Woodard is very beneficial for me.”
Bathgate’s positive spin on life helps them downplay overcoming personal challenges. They said they had some health issues and two major surgeries, one that caused them to miss two weeks of class.
“I had to find ways to communicate with professors and work with them to catch up with what I missed. It was hard for me to ask for help. Luckily, because of Covid, a lot of professors had prerecorded lectures from when everything was online. So, I could watch them to catch up and met with professors during their office hours to ask them questions. Everybody was very helpful. I appreciated all my professors.”
Bathgate is also able to smile at mishaps that might have ended much worse. They recalled an incident the first time they brought a friend with them to fly.
“We had an engine failure while landing at a different airport. One of the magnetos was bad. It’s what generates the spark for the spark plugs. There's usually two of them in a Cessna 152 and one of them failed. That was pretty harrowing.
“Everything was okay. We already made the runway. We landed no problem. We do simulated engine failure in flight school so I knew what to do but it was still scary, especially for the first time taking a friend up.”
How did the friend react?
“He was cool with it.” Bathgate smiled and added “I feel like after that, nobody else wanted to go up with me, though.”
Woodard said Bathgate has served as an undergraduate course assistant for AE 100, 140, 311, and 312 and supported the department’s outreach activities during the summer of 2022 by working at the aerospace camp dedicated to encouraging gender equity in engineering.
“Working with Dr. Woodard at the summer camp was a fun full-circle experience for me,” Bathgate said.
Although Marty’s mother is a professor, Marty said they’d never seen themself in that role, until now.
“I learned that I actually enjoy teaching, and I think it's really special to be able to share my passion for aerospace with others. It’s super rewarding for me. After graduation, I will continue at Illinois for my master’s degree and will be doing research with Dr. Ansell.”