Christina Lansing, a Washington State University Tri-Cities second-year mechanical engineering student will receive a $12,000 fellowship to participate in a new exchange and research program between Washington State University and Sweden’s Linkoping University (LiU). Selected by WSU and LiU professors, Lansing will begin her fellowship in fall 2023.

Lansing is a Tri-City native whose parents are both mechanical engineers and graduates of WSU Tri-Cities. “Growing up, I enjoyed problem-solving and working with my parents to design and repair things around the house, leading me to be interested in mechanical engineering as a career,” Lansing said. Through her classes and internship at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Lansing discovered her interest in Computer Aided Design (CAD) and hopes to secure a CAD focused job after graduation.

Lansing said she is looking forward to the Sweden exchange and research program so she can deepen her computer science understanding, learn in a new environment and participate in cultural activities to learn more about Sweden. “I think that this program will help me branch out and get out of my comfort zone educationally as well as socially. Building an international network could potentially create new job possibilities for my future and makes future travel significantly easier. I am excited to learn in a new environment and to meet new people,” she explained.

Joseph Iannelli, a professor of mechanical engineering in WSU’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, leads the research and exchange program and encouraged Lansing to apply. “She is a gifted WSU Tri-Cities mechanical engineering student completing a computer science minor and is comfortable speaking three other languages: German, Norwegian and Swedish,” Iannelli said.

As reported in the WSU Insider last summer, this program began when Ianelli’s grant proposal was awarded $300,000 by the National Science Foundation, under its International Research Experiences for Students program, to support 21 WSU students in Sweden over the next three years. The WSU-LiU team also received matching funding from the European Erasmus+ program and the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education to support reciprocal LiU students at WSU.