About Me

Table of Contents:

Who I am

My name is Caroline DeBrota, and I am an engineer currently living in Manchester, New Hampshire.

I was raised in Zionsville, Indiana, where I attended Zionsville Community High School. I graduated from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in May 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and a concentration in Biomechanics. My schooling has provided me with a broad base of technical knowledge in both mechanical and biomedical engineering, particularly as Rose-Hulman's biomedical engineering program emphasizes the engineering design process and medical device development.

I am an extremely enthusiastic person, and I channel that energy into my creative endeavors. In my professional life, I am passionate about improving lives through the engineering of novel devices and products. I am currently seeking hands-on engineering experience that will allow me to engage and develop my creative skills in a product development environment in the New Hampshire region. My complete resume can be found here.

My Interests

Reverse Engineering

The hands-on process of taking things apart to learn how they work and how they were built is what really sparked my love of engineering. Even when I am not intimately familiar with a particular mechanism, I am able to learn its function based on the context of its surrounding mechanisms.

When I was young, my dad would take things apart with me and teach me about the parts of circuit boards, gearing boxes, motors, etc. Wherever possible, I still take apart broken or unusable objects to see how they work, or to determine what manufacturing processes were used to make it.

Favorite things I've taken apart include a Super 8 camera, a 400-day clock, an analog adding machine, as well as numerous VCRs, alarm clocks, printers, cameras, and projectors.

I also use reverse-engineering principles in a lot of my personal projects!

Bits and pieces of a 400-day clock from the 1950s. I learned exactly what made it tick!

Crafting

Crafting is my main passion in life. I absolutely love making things with my hands, and have explored many different crafting techniques and methods over the years. While I have largely been limited to more conventional crafts (i.e. those that don't require the use of heavy equipment like a lathe or vertical mill) in the past, I have been taking every opportunity I can get to use bigger and more powerful tools for my crafts in the present day.

I love trying my hand at new crafting methods that I've never tried before. I will pursue a technique doggedly until I am satisfied with my results.

Crafts that I am proficient at include (but are not limited to, as I constantly learn new ones!): Sewing, origami (traditional and modular), embroidery, cross-stitch, card making, knitting, paper marbling, pour painting, appliqué, macramé, pottery and hand building, bookbinding, hand-forging, costuming, stenciling, and more.

Most recently, I learned to can jellies and jams, and have subsequently canned a large quantity of delicious 5-citrus marmalade. Who knows where my crafting adventures will take me next?

My first-ever Five Intersecting Tetrahedra in 2015. A delightfully difficult model that required over 2 hours of assembly alone!

Acting and Singing

I have been performing and singing in stage plays and musical theater shows since the age of 10. I am not afraid to speak and perform in front of others, and I love the creative and expressive environment of the theater.

I performed in 11 shows with the Rose-Hulman Drama Club over 2014-2018, where favorite roles included Paulette Buonofonte from Legally Blonde: The Musical, Helena from A Midsummer Night's Dream, Chiffon from Little Shop of Horrors, and Lady Augusta Bracknell from The Importance of Being Earnest. A full list of roles can be found here.

Since graduating, I have performed with the Manchester Community Theater Players in their production of The Music Man and am currently in a Cue Zero Theater Company production of The Importance of Being Earnest as Cecily Cardew.


Reading and Learning

I thrive on learning at all levels, both in the context of formal schooling and in hands-on, spur-of-the-moment experiences. I am always very excited to learn new skills and approach challenging scenarios with an open mind and willingness to adapt.

I also love reading books, most commonly in the form of audiobooks that I check out from my local library and devour in record time (in 2019 alone, I read over 50 books!). My favorite genres are nonfiction and humorous nonfiction, particularly authors like Bill Bryson and Mary Roach.

Recent favorite books include At Home by Bill Bryson, Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson, and Thunderstruck by Erik Larsen.

Reading on the quad at Rose-Hulman

Bees and the Environment

I deeply enjoy the outdoors and all it has to offer. I love to hike and walk in the outdoors, particularly in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

I am a strong proponent of sustainable business practices and the conservation of natural areas, particularly as it affects rapidly-plummeting insect populations which are extremely important (if often overlooked) parts of the ecosystem.

I find bees fascinating and seek out opportunities to participate in bee-related programs and events, and would love to own my own apiary someday.

Gardening and Plants

I love to be surrounded by leaves and plants. At Rose-Hulman, I was an avid member of the Gardening Club, and now that I have graduated I have amassed a collection of over 30 beautiful houseplants. It's fun to see plants grow and change over time, and you sometimes get very unexpected results (such as when I put a single leaf in a jar of water as a decoration...and it grew ~4 inch roots within 3 weeks!).

I am currently looking into finding a community garden where I can volunteer or have a plot during the summer so that I can get out and get my hands dirty again!

A few of my houseplants!