In my two short years teaching here at MMA, Barbara has been a mentor for, and an inspiration to myself and countless other. She has shown me exactly what a forward-thinking engineer is capable of. Our charge as professionals (not just engineers) in Academia and in industry is not to refute the endless challenges that we are presented with, or to avoid them altogether, but to continuously address and tackle them head on. Only through my interaction with Barbara have I realized this. More importantly than all of that, Barbara is a good person. I did not have Barbara as a professor while I was at MMA (though I wish that I had), but I’m willing to be that 20 years from now, students of hers will reflect back and realize that her teaching, coupled with her kindness, played a disproportionately large role in nudging them through their curricula at MMA. Barbara is the embodiment of the potential that we are all capable of. She is exactly the person that I hope to be when I grow up.