Oh the Places You'll Go: An Interview with Purdue Alumna Anna Giesler

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Anna at the Formula 1 Track in Abu Dhabi this past December

About Anna

Anna Giesler graduated from Purdue in 2020 with a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering. During her time at Purdue, she was on the Purdue Swimming and Diving team and balanced her life as an engineer and a student-athlete. During one of the swim meets her freshman year, Anna encountered Dr. Jan-Anders Mansson, a professor in Materials Engineering at Purdue, who introduced her to the world of sports engineering. Under Mansson, Anna worked on a research project on the permeability of swimsuits for the Fédération Internationale De Natation (FINA), the governing body of international aquatics. She was able to present her work to the federation in Switzerland where a new regulation on swimsuit materials was made (“FINA Approved” Swimwear). Since this project, Anna has worked alongside Mansson to build the Ray Ewry Sports Engineering Center (RESEC) which was founded in 2019 to help grow the intersection between sports and engineering within the Purdue community. Now Director of RESEC, Anna has been able to travel the world for different events and programs to help build the sports engineering program such as the Abu Dhabi FINA World Championships and the IMD Business School’s Innovation in Action Program in Lausanne, Switzerland.


What made you decide to come to Purdue and pursue Materials Engineering?

When I came here on my official visit for swimming, I really felt like Purdue is a family. Everyone here is so welcoming, and I truly felt at home when I stepped on campus. This sense of community was really important to me as I pursued engineering because I knew I would be supported by everyone around me. Engineering is a very challenging major, but because I had the support of my peers and professors, I knew that the challenges were not impossible to overcome.

I had not known about materials prior to coming here. In fact, I was planning on studying Mechanical Engineering and then going to graduate school for Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. However, Mansson gave me an incredible opportunity to combine my love and passion for sports and engineering. This is one of the things I loved most about my time at Purdue: the unique opportunities you can have here that are not often advertised. Also, materials engineering is such a cool field where there are so many industries you can work in, such as sports, that people don’t know about. Materials is a small, but growing, field, and it will be awesome to see where the materials industry is going in the future.


Anna took part in the IMD Business School Innovation in Action Program in Lausanne, Switzerland this past winter


What have been some of your favorite parts about your position as Director of RESEC and what are your goals as director?

I have really loved all the opportunities to travel and meet some incredible people across the globe as we build the center. Traveling to Switzerland and Sweden in particular were very interesting experiences since I got to immerse myself in a different culture and see quite literally the work we have been doing from their perspective. That is not something you get to experience when conducting business over zoom.

As director, I really hope to grow the center and create more opportunities for people who may be interested in pursuing a degree they can apply in the sports industry. As I said before, Purdue has so many incredibly unique experiences you cannot get anywhere else. We really want to make working at RESEC at Purdue one of those experiences and make Purdue be a global powerhouse in the sports industry. This will help provide even more opportunities for students and rising professionals. Sport is a great industry to be involved in as an engineer, and we want to open more doors for Purdue students to be a part of it. Also, we recently made our official announcement for the MS Interdisciplinary Engineering Masters Program Concentration in Sports Engineering which is very exciting. We hope to use this program as a way to get your masters in one year and prepare future students for a successful career in sport.



Purdue’s new sports engineering concentration under the IDE Master’s Program hopes to prepare students and professionals to excel in a career in sport.


If you could go back and give your freshman year self advice, what would you tell yourself?

One thing I would tell my freshman self is that as an engineer, you can do more than just “engineering”. Engineering helps you develop a skill set where you can problem solve in a variety of ways, and it does not have to be an identity. I am so grateful to have been able to gain the skills and knowledge from engineering that I can apply in entrepreneurial work.

I would also tell myself to not be afraid of failure. Failure is not a bad thing. You can still hate it, but just because something does not work the first time does not mean it's the end of that thing. If you play it safe, you get safe results. College is the perfect time and environment to try new things, so give yourself permission to have crazy ideas because it is the journey from these ideas where progress is made!


If you have any questions, comments, or want to find out more about the unique experiences you can have at Purdue, tag us, leave a comment, or follow us!

Becca Jennings, MSE

WE Link Leadership Team


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