Elizabeth City, NC – With a name like Brianna Barbee, thoughts of the iconic childhood toy may come to mind. But the spring 2024 graduate is proving she’s no one to play with. Since graduating from Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) with a Bachelor of Science in engineering technology and a mechanical engineering concentration, new opportunities have opened in Barbee’s world as she’s becoming a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) force to be reckoned with.
With a degree in tow, Barbee is on a mission to leave the world better than she found it. Now pursuing her master’s degree at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University (NC A&T), she is focused on perfecting her craft by hitting the books and the lab in hopes of ultimately tackling climate change through renewable energy research.
“I want to work on projects that help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and focus on clean energy solutions,” Barbee said. “Global warming is a real issue, and I’m passionate about anything renewable energy related, to make the environment better.”
Studying to sharpen her skills at an institution nationally recognized for excellence in STEM education, Barbee sets the stage for a career that promises to leave a lasting impact.
But her journey into engineering didn’t start in a lab—it began with a simple high school survey. In a college and career preparation class, she had to answer questions about her interests, not expecting the results to change her life.
“I took a career quiz in class, and I got engineer for the majority of my answers,” Barbee said. “I’ve always loved math and science, but that survey made me realize this more.”
That revelation was the spark that set Barbee on a journey from her hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana, to ECSU.
Though Barbee initially set her heart on attending NC A&T because of its reputation, the high cost of out-of-state tuition led her mother, a driving source of motivation for Barbee, to suggest ECSU, one of four North Carolina Promise schools whose tuition cost was significantly reduced to make education more affordable and accessible. Plus, Barbee was familiar with Elizabeth City after spending every childhood summer in town with her grandfather. Barbee’s mother told her to go for a year and said, “You can always transfer.”
Barbee added, “Once I got to ECSU, I started doing research and meeting people. I joined the cheer team and didn’t want to leave.”
Upon arriving at ECSU, she pursued electrical engineering. Then, she took a mechanical engineering class and Mehran Elahi, professor of engineering technology, made her choice between mechanical and electrical engineering easy.
“He made me love the class a lot. It was more challenging and included more calculations, so I switched to mechanical. I feel like I was learning more. There were more calculations and hands-on opportunities with mechanical.”
As a NoVEL scholar—a consortium between Norfolk State University (NSU), Virginia State University (VSU), Elizabeth City State University (ECSU), and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) designed to prepare students for internship and career opportunities—Barbee took advantage of every opportunity ECSU had to offer. Despite the pandemic altering plans in her first year, she still completed a remote internship with ECSU, analyzing data and preparing research. The following summers brought more experiences, as she researched water-splitting technology at the University of Louisville in Kentucky and interned at the U.S. Coast Guard Base in Elizabeth City. Her latest achievement was a ten-week internship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California.
According to LLNL, Barbee worked on a meniscus coater, a large device built at the lab for coating meter-size grating optical substrates. The coater’s carriage and holder assembly would droop for the larger optical substrates.
Barbee had to generate and use a 3D solid CAD model of the meniscus coater to perform a finite element analysis (FEA), a computerized method for predicting how a product reacts to real-world forces such as vibration, heat, fluid flow and other physical effects. The FEA shows whether a product will break, wear out and work the way it was designed. The project’s goal was to determine and recommend changes that can be made to the coater to minimize or prevent the drooping from occurring.
At the poster symposium held Aug. 7, Barbee received the Graduate People’s Choice first place award for her poster on “Reducing Deflection Using FEA Analysis for Meniscus Coater.”
She credits much of her success to her professors at ECSU, who supported her academically and personally. “The professors I had were amazing. They treated us like family. They stayed on top of us when it came to going to class, giving us phone calls when homework was due.” she said. “They find these opportunities for us. The only reason I’ve been able to have an internship every summer is because my professors made sure I did.”
The journey from a high school survey to an ECSU graduate wasn’t always easy, but the support she received from her mother made all the difference. “My mom came to visit me in California and she’s always coming to visit me wherever I am,” Barbee said. “She keeps me grounded.”
Barbee continues to build a legacy far beyond the dream house. Her success so far hasn’t just impacted her future. As a first-generation college graduate, Barbee has inspired her younger cousins to pursue higher education, and she continues to encourage her little brother and sister. “I like to think they look up to me and for them to know we are actually out in the field. It’s not a myth, and it’s not something they can see just on Hidden Figures. I tell my little brother and little sister they will be engineers one day,” she said.
As she opens this next chapter at NC A&T, she carries the lessons, friendships and experiences from ECSU. Despite being in Aggie territory, her heart remains tied to the place that shaped her into the engineer she is today.
“I rock Viking pride even here in Aggie land,” Barbee said.
Barbee’s new title as an engineer is one she also wears with pride. The awareness of black women in STEM is increasing. This week, Barbee approached a man whose car would not start. As she offered to give him a jump-start with her cables, he jokingly said, “You think you’re an engineer or something?”
Barbee replied, “Actually, I am.”