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Candice Bauer: A Role Model
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 Candice Bauer shares her experiences that has advanced her professional engineering career (Interview)
Meet Candice Bauer, engineer and lecturer, active ASME volunteer, and the 2007 ASME Old Guard Early Career Award recipient. In her late 20s, Candice has already assembled a vast and impressive professional and volunteer career. Candice is a lecturer at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she has taught subjects such as Mechanical Design, Aerodynamics, Senior Capstone Design, and Engineering Communications. She is also one of the youngest ASME Vice Presidents in the society’s history, taking office as the Vice President, ASME Center for Professional Development, Practice, and Ethics in June 2007 at the ASME 2007 Summer Annual Meeting in Toronto, Canada.
Candice received her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) in 2001, a Master of Science in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering from the University of California, Davis in June 2003, and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Engineering Management from Kennedy-Western University (Wyoming) in March 2005. Add to those tremendous academic achievements, a second Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Leadership from the UNR, and a picture begins to form of a dedicated, brilliant engineer who strives for excellence.
Candice began her ASME involvement as a member of the UNR ASME student section and quickly became an active ASME volunteer. She has served as the UNR Student Section Secretary and Webmaster, as well as the Comstock Section Webmaster. Candice has volunteered at the international level since 2001, when she was elected as the Region IX Student Representative to the Student Sections Committee. Receiving a degree (or two or three) didn’t stop Candice’s ASME activities. She went on to serve as a member of the ASME Board on Early Career Development, and the Chairs of the ASME Project Team for Student Contests and Conferences and the ASME Committee on Student Development. While a free trip to Hawaii may have influenced her initial decision to join ASME, Candice quickly connected with the mission, vision and people of ASME.
Candice teaches classes at UNR, and serves as the Internship Coordinator for the College of Engineering. She loves her job and what she does, and is so dedicated that she says her greatest challenge is on the weekends when she’s “separated from [her] students.” In addition to teaching engineering equations and theories, Candice mentors her students and serves as a role model. In her role as a teacher, she gets to work with many engineering majors, not just mechanical, and has one piece of advice that she passes along to all future engineers: “As an engineer, our basic job is to serve society.” In addition to teaching and coordinating internships, Candice still manages to find time to publish articles. She has authored numerous papers at ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Expositions, as well as the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE)/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Frontiers in Education Conference and the 2007 ASME International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI) TurboExpo, among others.
ASME members join and get involved for a variety of reasons, and Candice is no different. She states that she kept her ASME membership after college because she “wanted to contribute to society in a meaningful way, such as protect the health, safety, and welfare of society.” Candice does not look at ASME and wonder what ASME can do for her, but what it does and can do for human-kind: ASME develops codes and standards, provides professional development and ethics training, and provides a forum for the sharing and advancement of technology. She understands the important missions ASME has, and, in her words, wants “to help contribute to them because it makes our society as a whole better.” Candice also takes some measure of comfort in knowing that she has friends and colleagues from around the world because of her ASME activities – no matter the state or country, she will always find a friend.
While teaching and volunteering fills up part of Candice’s time, she still finds time for leisure and fun. She enjoys the great outdoors Reno/Tahoe has to offer however, she loves to travel and often finds herself at the airport. As an avid Mickey Mouse fan, Candice she enjoys Disney. Candice is also an enthusiastic supporter of animals, as evidenced by her pets and her volunteer work with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Humane Society, and Defenders of Wildlife. She has “tons of animals,” including a cat, dogs, indoor fish, outdoor fish, and random wildlife in her yard.
When working with students and early career engineers, Candice shares some of the advice she’s been given and lessons learned. She advises that early career engineers “always look for, be ready for, and take all opportunities.” If an opportunity presents itself, early career engineers should at least try it because you never know what may happen. In describing early career engineers, Candice says that “we are too young to be picky. Even if we think we know exactly what we want, it is important not to dismiss the chance to try something new.” Candice experienced this firsthand while in graduate school. For years, she had no desire to enter academia, instead believing that she would go into industry after finishing her education. Then, during post graduate work, there was an emergency and she was asked to teach a class. She decided to take the opportunity, and fell in love with teaching. Candice also cautions that “real life is more important.” Do not ignore friends and family, weddings, graduations, or day-to-day chances to hang out with friends in lieu of watching television, playing a video game, or studying obsessively. Those things are not real life: people are.
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