Micah Thorpe
Degree: B.S., Mechanical Engineering
Hometown: Germantown, MD
Post-grad plans: Ph.D., mechanical engineering, University of Michigan
“My mom is a teacher at a Title I school. She’s a huge inspiration for me. She’s always working to expose her kids to STEM, which encouraged me to do the same—and I realized I could do it here at UMBC.”
Micah Thorpe ’22, mechanical engineering, is a Meyerhoff Scholar and member of the Honors College at UMBC. He started working with local students in his first year at UMBC through a program called College Gardens, helping them with homework and other activities. His commitment to the work grew, and by the next year he was a student coordinator for the Walden Circle Community Center, which provides similar programming for students in grades K-8.
Thorpe has also served on the executive board of UMBC’s National Society for Black Engineers (NSBE) chapter. In his role as pre-college initiative chair, Thorpe organized tutoring and other activities for students in Baltimore County, Howard County, and Baltimore City.
Moving through his career, “I definitely want to continue doing the same type of work, and spreading knowledge of STEM,” Thorpe says, “giving kids hands-on experiences and showing them what the possibilities are within STEM.”
Thorpe has grown his own passion for STEM at UMBC through conducting battery research in the laboratory of Deepa Madan, mechanical engineering. He is also grateful to Eloise Grose, assistant director of applied learning and community engagement at the Shriver Center, for her mentorship during his outreach work.
Tags: COEIT, HonorsCollege, MechE, MeyerhoffScholars
