West Linn grad returns to the Portland metro area for job at Nike

Caroline Swanson got hooked on engineering in kindergarten. That year, her science fair project involved seeing how tape stuck to different materials, like tree bark or a leaf.

“That’s when I started being curious about how materials work together,” Swanson said.

That interest followed her through school. After tackling more complex science fair projects at West Linn High School, she went on to graduate from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo this year with a degree in mechanical engineering. This summer, Swanson, 22, returned to the Portland metro area to take a job as a quality engineer at Nike.

In high school, Swanson was introduced to sports engineering when she and her twin sister worked on a project for the International Science and Engineering Fair, a competition sponsored by Intel. Her twin sister Diana, who also went to Cal Poly and graduated with a degree in physics, was inspired by watching Usain Bolt run in the 2012 Olympics. She realized a runner transfers a lot of energy into the ground when they run, so the sisters wondered if it was possible to “harvest energy from footsteps.” For two years, the sisters worked on the project, studying electrical engineering in their off time, and ultimately developed a prototype.

“It kind of worked, but as high schoolers we weren’t able to perfect it,” she said. Their work received several awards from the international fair.

And while the project didn’t take off, it set her on the path that would lead her to Nike. Following that experience, she interned for Nike in their material and mechanical testing lab the summer before her senior year of high school.

The Nike internship made her realize, “That's what I wanted to do and that's the path that I wanted to follow,” she said.

As not only an engineer but also an athlete, Swanson has a vested interest in athletic shoe design. At West Linn, she ran track and played soccer and lacrosse. At Cal Poly, she took up ultimate frisbee. Her experiences as an athlete inform how she approaches shoe engineering.

“I know the importance of good footwear,” she said. After all, in the field of competitive sports “milliseconds matter,” she said, and a shoe’s design can help make that difference in an athlete’s performance.

On top of that, Swanson has experienced athletic injuries, and supportive shoes can help in the recovery process. She’s currently healing from surgery to repair a stress fracture in her foot, caused by running too much for the ultimate frisbee team.

During spring break of her senior year, she decided to try designing a better ultimate frisbee cleat. Details like the cleat’s stud pattern on the sole and the width of the toe, she said, can make a big difference. Her engineer’s eye helped her figure out where improvements could be made, and she created a digital design with that in mind.

And that wasn’t a project for work or class, she said, “that was just a hobby on the side.”

While at Cal Poly, she also worked on a year-long senior project to design a prosthetic leg adaptable enough for surfing.

“That was a hard challenge,” she said, “because there's nothing like it on the market that creates that ankle movement and the flexibility that you need to surf and control the surfboards.”

She worked on the project as part of an interdisciplinary engineering class for seniors. The project idea came from Operation Surf, a non-profit that runs a free surfing program for injured active-duty military and wounded veterans. Because the organization works with many people with diverse body types, the prosthetics had to be adjustable. Quality of Life Plus, a national organization dedicated to finding technical solutions to support wounded veterans and first-responders, sponsored the project.

Alongside another mechanical engineering student and two biomedical engineering students, Swanson spent her senior year designing, manufacturing and testing a prosthetic that was up to the challenge. Swanson engineered the prosthetic’s carbon-fiber foot.

“She did not need to be pushed. She’s definitely a self-starter,” said Jim Widmann, chair of Cal Poly’s mechanical engineering department and adviser to Swanson’s team, adding she was an effective problem-solver who also would actively seek out the expertise of other professors when she needed help.

“It’s definitely a challenge for a woman in mechanical engineering, because you’re a minority,” Widmann said. Only about one in five mechanical engineering students at Cal Poly are female, he said. That’s already a higher proportion than the national workforce, where about one in 10 mechanical engineers are female. Swanson said she was often one of two female students in her classes, and while sexist comments weren’t uncommon, she said her experience as a mechanical engineering student was generally positive.

Working with Operation Surf exposed Swanson to the more human side of engineering. Engineers are expected to follow a code of ethics, which mandates that engineers develop products with user safety and welfare in mind. But Swanson said seeing her team’s prosthetic in action made the experience more personal.

When her team began product testing, Swanson met a woman who was both a leg amputee and a competitor in Ironman triathlons.

“She was like, ‘Well, just put my leg on for me,’ so I just put her leg on,” Swanson said. That experience was unusual, she said, but meaningful—engaging with the people using her team’s product showed her the impact of her work.

Looking forward, Swanson can see herself moving into prosthetics engineering eventually.

“We could just see them smile and just be like, ‘Wow, this can be something really cool and helpful in their everyday lives,’” she said. “They didn't realize what they were missing with their current prosthetics and to give someone that ability is really cool.”

--Casey Chaffin; cchaffin@oregonian.com; @todaycaseysays