Watson Scholars graduate made the most of her Binghamton experience

One thing you can say about Clara Rodriguez ’24: She’s been ready to grab hold of every opportunity — both academic and extracurricular — during her time at Binghamton University.

As a biomedical engineering major with a minor in Spanish, Rodriguez was part of the inaugural cohort for the Watson College Scholars Program when she arrived at Binghamton in fall 2021. The program aids economically challenged undergraduates with a priority for applicants from historically underrepresented backgrounds.

She also found help through the TRIO and BFirst initiatives, which offer guidance to low-income and first-generation college students. The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program provided her with research and conference support to prepare her for graduate school, and she was one of Binghamton’s first students admitted into the Beckman Scholars Program, a 15-month immersive research program through which she explored biomechanics and biomaterials to better understand how they relate to the human body.

Rodriguez served as the friendly student guide in the latest Watson College tour video, showing off highlights such as the Fabrication Lab and the solar-panel array on the roof of the Engineering and Science Building, and she appeared on the cover of the Watson Review magazine.

She volunteered at her church and a local food pantry, offering Spanish-to-English translation for anyone who needed it. She even hoofed it with the Binghamton Ballroom Dance Association and found somewhere in town that teaches line dancing.

And at Watson College’s Commencement ceremony on Friday, Rodriguez will deliver the undergraduate address to her classmates. You have to wonder: When exactly does she sleep?

“I’m really happy that I’ll get to represent the Class of 2024,” said the Hopewell Junction, N.Y., native. “One thing I like about my engineering courses is that our smaller class size means it feels like a more close-knit community. You see the same people in class, so you develop relationships with them.”

As the first in her family to pursue higher education, Rodriguez earned an Associate in Engineering Science degree at Dutchess Community College before coming to Binghamton.

Higher-ed acronyms, financial-aid paperwork and classroom expectations can be confusing without help from a parent or sibling who has traveled that road before, so Rodriguez is grateful for the support the University provided to her.

“The Watson College Scholars Program did a great job of helping me orient myself to which offices and departments were relevant to my major and interests,” she said. “Also, we learned about networking and figuring out what industry connections we have in the area, and even just self-care, like recommending a good hiking spot. They all help to balance out my Binghamton undergrad experience.”

For her Beckman Scholars project, Rodriguez worked with Associate Professor Guy German from the Biomedical Engineering Department as her mentor, analyzing skin patterns on human hands and arms for potential forensic applications.

“When I went to conferences, I spoke to biologists, chemists, physicists, neurologists and not many biomedical engineering people, but I understood all of them,” she said. “I had a place at all of those tables because of how Binghamton’s courses really gave me a taste of each discipline.”

Because biomedical engineering is a broad field with many different opportunities for career paths, Rodriguez believes it can be overwhelming to figure out which subfield to focus on. Her classes at Binghamton helped her to narrow it down.

“I like learning how things work and how they function, mechanically speaking,” she said. “What is the mechanical limit of human tissue? Or, why is this disease causing a certain component of a tissue to break down? How can we as medical professionals help reverse that process?”

Next for Rodriguez is pursuing her PhD in biomedical engineering at the University of Central Florida, where she will work alongside a professor who does prosthetics research for veterans and the elderly. She’ll take with her the many lessons and memories from her time at Binghamton University.

“One thing I like about Binghamton is that there are many opportunities to customize your own education. It empowers students to make what they want of their time here,” she said.

“The Watson Scholars program has a special place in my heart because of that uniqueness. We have guidance from faculty and staff, but it’s largely a program by students for students. I really hope that I’ll see future articles or shoutouts on LinkedIn about what those future scholars are contributing and doing.”