2021 Stabler Donor Impact Report R4

ENGINEERING Name: Matthew Stasolla Hometown: Nazareth, PA Major: Mechanical Engineering Class: 2023 Favorite activity: Spikeball Club Favorite faculty or staff: Professor Donald Rockwell, Mechanical Engineering Dream job: Aerospace Engineer My inspiration to excel at Lehigh stems from my eagerness for the future. My main focus is to excel in school, achieve excellent grades, and gain work experience to increase my worth as a candidate. I’d love to be able to help my parents retire, as their financial situation isn’t exactly ideal. I’m the last of three kids to go to college, and they’ve done absolutely everything they could to support all of us. The least I can do is challenge and push myself to succeed. Other than academics and work, my personal happiness inspires me to be social and inclusive in various clubs. Work can be stressful, so I joined Spikeball Club, Formula SAE, and many other clubs in order to keep myself active and happy. My long-term career goal is to be an aerospace engineer for a top aerospace company like SpaceX, NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, or anything of the sort. I’ve already taken up a spring internship through Professor Rockwell based around fluid me- chanics, and I’ve landed a summer internship at Victaulic after my freshman year. Without an education as amazing as Lehigh’s, none of this would’ve been possible. I am very confident that if I keep putting the work in, I will work my way up and eventually obtain my goal of being an aerospace engineer. During my freshman year, Professor Donald Rockwell gave me the opportunity to intern for his class in fluid mechanics. I appreciate Professor Rockwell so much. Even after COVID-19 hit us, he continued to make sure I learned as much as I could. Instead of going to in-person labs, he gave me countless documents explaining the labs, and he gave me tasks that would help me understand the concept of fluid mechanics. Despite being one of the busiest professors in the mechanical engineering and mechanics department, he still made a continuous effort to make sure I was staying on track and that I was happy with my work. Giving back means many different things to me. Any type of helpful gesture, whether it’s mental, physical, or emotional, is giving back. Giving back to the community is something all people should do at some point in their life. Volunteering is an amazing way to meet a lot of new people while doing something incredible to help others that really need it. I believe any act of kindness that has a positive impact is defined as giving back. I want to thank you greatly for supporting me and my fellow peers. It helps us much more than you could ever imagine. I honestly do not know if I would be able to complete my Lehigh career if it wasn’t for scholarship support. I hope one day to be fortunate enough to follow in your footsteps and do the same. Thank you.