Joe Elio

Joe Elio grew up building and restoring cars. Because of that interest and his experience with mechanical systems, he felt a natural attraction towards ASU’s mechanical engineering program.

“The interesting part of mechanical engineering is that we are trained to work in many areas,” Elio says. “We are educated in many subjects, including structural stress analyses, fatigue analyses, control systems and thermodynamics, to name a few.”

At ASU, Elio conducted undergraduate research under Assistant Professor Ryan Milcarek and worked at ASU’s Industrial Assessment Center during the summer before his graduation.

In his work with faculty members in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy as well as the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering, Elio helped develop a research paper on energy storage technologies suitable for use in industrial facilities.

Elio also served as a teaching assistant for two different classes.

“I find helping others extremely rewarding,” Elio says. “Being a teaching assistant for thermodynamics and holding weekly recitation sections to teach others is my greatest achievement.”

After graduation, Elio plans to pursue a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering under Milcarek’s guidance. Once he finishes his doctoral studies, he plans to work in a national research laboratory.

“I look forward to a career in which I do not have the same job every day since there will always be new technological challenges,” Elio says.

Elio’s primary career interest is to work on developing energy storage technologies suitable for the extreme temperature conditions encountered in space and on interplanetary missions.

“Engineering has changed my life because it has driven me to be a harder worker and has taught me to be a better problem solver in order to be successful in my academics,” Elio says. “My degree will impact the lives of others because I plan to help tackle global problems to increase the quality of life for others.”

Read about other exceptional graduates of the Fulton Schools’ fall 2020 class here.