Impacting lives through sharing knowledge and time

Meet Bay Area Network Leader Gwen Musial ’14

Tell us about your time as a student.

When I was a freshman at Rochester I was really excited about all of the different clubs and activities and may have over-committed myself a bit. I played rugby, water polo, joined Greek Life, and was in the Biomedical Engineering Society and Society of Women in Engineering. In my sophomore year, I got even more involved and joined the Meridians (ie. campus tour guides) and gave both general campus tours and engineering tours. I loved that I got to try so many different things outside of classes. However, I think some of my favorite memories were from my senior design class. It was so fun to get to actually implement all four years of coursework into a practical application and my project let me use the URnano Nanofabrication Cleanroom in Goergen Hall which was a really cool experience. I am still surprised at how the director of URNano let us use the facilities and all of the incredibly high-end technology for a student project when it was primarily used for cutting-edge research.

How did your experience at the University of Rochester influence your life?

I, like many others, got involved in research at Rochester and it had a huge impact on my life. I enjoyed the technology I was working on in my undergraduate projects so much I then went on to graduate school and continued to work in the same field. My PhD advisor even did his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Rochester! While I have now moved to a career in the medical device industry, I still attend the same conferences as my former advisors so I am able to catch up with them year after year. These are connections that I deeply cherish even though it has been years since I worked in some of their labs. The field of ophthalmic imaging is quite small and Rochester is a huge player in the field so being an alumni has been a valuable asset to me in my career.

What inspired you to get involved and volunteer?

I first started volunteering with the University while I was a graduate student in Houston after attending a few of the happy hour events and connecting with other volunteers. It was a great way to meet people in a new city and it was fun to help plan the events. In my senior year, I was a student interviewer as part of the Meridian society so it only felt natural to continue to volunteer to interview prospective students.

What’s the most rewarding part of staying connected with your alma mater?

I love doing the alumni interviews to meet the next generation of Rochester students. During the pandemic, I was living in Cologne, Germany, so I interviewed a lot of students who were from Europe and it was incredible to hear of the things they had accomplished already and to learn about what made them excited about the University. Since many of these students didn’t have the chance to visit campus before applying or even after being accepted due to both the distance and the pandemic, they had a lot of questions about what the campus and campus life was like. Being able to connect with them and share my experiences after they had shared their incredible experiences of helping refugees, building companies, and adapting to many new cultures was a bright spot in the pandemic for me.

What are you looking forward to next?

I am really looking forward to the Global Days of Service. I recently moved to the Bay Area and I am excited to give back to the community and learn about ways to get more involved in community service.

What advice do you have for others looking to get involved?

Start with something that you already enjoy doing. If you don’t like happy hours, you don’t have to go to one or plan one, you could help plan a community hike; one of the most fun events I went to as an alumni was a camping trip!