Dylan Rebois didn’t always want to save the world.
But as a recipient of the latest round of the Marshall Scholarship, he’ll travel to the United Kingdom to do just that through researching the latest in energy technology and studying the policy that makes it happen.
“I didn’t come in to college thinking at all that I would be involved in this kind of stuff,” said Rebois, a senior mechanical engineering major. “It’s totally beyond what I had anticipated doing.”
Rebois is one of 32 recipients out of 999 applicants to receive the prestigious scholarship, which requires a rigorous application process that includes writing three essays — a personal statement, a proposed study plan and why the applicant wants to study in the U.K. — a detailed resumé, four letters of recommendation and an interview.
Rebois will be putting his scholarship toward completing a one-year renewable energy program at Imperial College in London, as well as another year-long program in engineering for sustainable development at the University of Cambridge.
It’s the conclusion of an undergraduate career laden with engineering accomplishments and scholarly achievements: Rebois has been an active member of Engineers Without Borders since his freshman year, worked with the Student Government Association’s Student Sustainability Committee and the university’s Sustainability Council, interns at the Department of Energy and also received a Truman Scholarship for postgraduate studies in his junior year.
But Rebois said that although he was always interested in math and science, he was only sure he’d stay in those fields — not what sort of planet-saving endeavors they’d ultimately facilitate.
“I knew that math, technology, science were a good fit,” he said. “And I liked working with my hands, so engineering was a good fit.”
But as Rebois began his freshman year at the university in aerospace engineering, he realized that with the work he was starting to do in Engineers Without Borders — the first extracurricular activity he became involved with here — his interests were starting to shift.
“As I did some research with the aerospace department, I realized I was getting the most personal reward in the things I was doing that were working directly with people,” he said.
Rebois cites his work with Engineering Without Borders as his primary inspiration. The group brought him to Burkina Faso to retrofit hand-cranked water pumps with solar power and to Ethiopia to build a youth center.
Now, Rebois’ plans are all about renewable energy and bringing it to Third World countries that lack, as Rebois put it, “electricity, lights at night — the kinds of things we take for granted here.
“Ultimately, I want to be in a position where I can kind of manage negotiations at a high level between nations and communities to develop programs for bringing alternative and low-carbon technology to communities and deal with issues of energy access,” he said.
While Rebois’ aspirations may sound lofty and his resumé intimidating, his roommate, senior information systems and marketing major Chris DeCaro, said Rebois is nothing but down to earth.
“If you don’t ask him directly what’s going on, he’ll never tell you,” DeCaro said. “It’s kind of a secret — he doesn’t really brag about what he does.”
And DeCaro said although Rebois is hardworking, he’s no geek.
“They’re usually tough socially or in a different realm, but he’s good at interacting with different kinds of people,” DeCaro said.
Public policy professor Nathan Hultman, who worked with Rebois on a research project about solar power technology in the Persian Gulf countries, said that humanistic side of Rebois is what gives him his edge.
“He does understand, in a way that many people sometimes have a hard time sensing, how different proposals might fit well into the societal context,” said Hultman, who also wrote Rebois a letter of recommendation for the scholarship. “He’s got a sensitivity to the local conditions and what people want that will put him in a good place.”
And while Hultman said Rebois’ accomplishments have been built largely around the university’s prestigious engineering program, the benefit is mutual.
“For the university, it reflects well on the intellectual community that we’re producing people like this,” he said.
isaacs at umdbk dot com
