Melanie Willi

As an undergrad, Melanie Willi was very involved with Pi Tau Sigma, acting in several committed leadership and executive board roles. During her second semester of freshman year, she also became a parallel co-op student for Caterpillar. Willi worked with the company throughout the remainder of her college years and then accepted a full-time position as a design engineer after graduation.

She is now a system integration engineer, working for Caterpillar’s motor grader product group. She works with design teams to ensure that different aspects of the design of each product are cohesive and to maintain machine level goals such as serviceability and reliability. Willi is responsible for supporting prototype and production builds in the factory as well as resolving machine level and other design-related issues.

Willi encourages students to keep a work-life balance while on campus. “Find some time to have fun and discover new interests,” she said. “It’s easy to be hyper focused on building your resume and not take enough time to try new things while you have the opportunity.” She maintains a similar balance these days, competing on volleyball and bowling teams in her free time. She also serves on the board of directors for a local non-profit and is active with the Society of Women Engineers.

Read about Willi’s visit to GAMES camp at Illinois here.

Article: Meredith Staub

Photo: Melanie Willi via Linkedin

Vignette written by: Taylor Tucker, October 2018

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