Isaiah Spencer-Williams, who turned 19 on July 5, has already compiled a scholarly dossier akin to someone twice his age.
He served as a teaching assistant during 2015 with INVESTING NOW, the University of Pittsburgh’s pre-college summer enrichment program for diverse high school students who have an interest in engineering. A previous participant himself, he served as a mentor for the program’s student advisory board.
A National Honor Society inductee, Spencer-Williams was among the top 20 students in his class at Central Catholic High School, where he graduated with honors before entering the University of Pittsburgh to study engineering.
The East Pittsburgh resident stumbled upon his affinity for the sciences as a grade school student at St. James Catholic School in Wilkinsburg, now Sister Thea Bowman Catholic Academy, where he participated in a science fair. Spencer-Williams was so focused on his project and demonstrated such an innate skill that his science teacher suggested he consider becoming an engineer. He admits that at the time he didn’t know anything about what it meant to be an engineer.
“Honestly, I had to look up engineering when she suggested it to me as a field of study. I was instantly intrigued,” Spencer-Williams says. “I loved solving problems, and I’m obsessed with getting answers. Once I start I will not stop — especially if I know I have the tools and am equipped to come up with the answer. This and my love of math drew me the rest of the way into the decision to study engineering.”
As a sophomore in the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, he has a tremendous passion for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and works as a researcher in the INVESTING NOW program. This passion is clearly evident as he describes the research.
“There is a problem within STEM, in so far as pushing engineering majors through the pipeline; that is, getting them from high school into college studying engineering, and having them remain in the program,” Spencer-Williams explains. “About half of the freshmen entering engineering programs stay for a while, but sometime around halfway through, they begin to drop out and go into other areas. This is the identified problem we are examining.”
Emiola Jay Oriola, interim associate director of INVESTING NOW, says Spencer-Williams’ work on this research is demanding, keeps him busy, and is where he is honing his leadership skills.
“Isaiah is a natural-born leader,” says his mother, Cecelia Spencer, a financial analyst with UPMC who raised him as a single mom. “From day one, there were not too many people who met him who were not immediately affected in some way by him. He was only in first grade when I realized this.”
Spencer says Isaiah actually convinced her father to keep him home from school for a week once because the school bus he rode was too chaotic for him.
“I only became aware of this when the school phoned me to see what was going on because he hadn’t been to school for a week,” she says. “We would ultimately decide to remove him from that school district and enroll him at St. James.”
Isaiah describes himself basically as an introvert and identifies it as being one of his social challenges. But the effusive smile, warm enthusiasm and energetic demeanor belie that description.
Isaiah has embraced writing and performing poetry as a way to navigate through his shyness and to connect with a segment of folks who don’t fall under the STEM radar stream. In this regard, he shares that it is crafting of this art that helps bring him out of a shell if he is in a room full of people. He feels there is a connection to his passion for engineering and his gift of writing.
“I think the communication aspect fits into engineering,” he says. “As engineers, you need to be able to express your thoughts clearly and in a way for those not in engineering to understand, and I think poetry has helped me with expressing my emotions clearly and effectively to create a sense of empathy in others. It’s also just really cool because you wouldn’t expect an engineer to have a passion for poetry. The stereotypical engineer tries as hard as they can to stay away from writing, but I try as hard as I can to gravitate toward it.”
Isaiah has extremely ambitious goals and a clear view of his aspirations for his future. He intends to receive a doctorate in either environmental engineering or engineering education, or both, and to ultimately own an environmental engineering/green architecture firm. He also plans to travel and become a published spoken word artist or poet.
“Isaiah is an intelligent, creative and very humble young scholar,” Oriola says. “He shined all throughout high school. However, what now distinguishes him from his peers is his work ethic. Many students simply do what is necessary to academically stay afloat. Isaiah swims as if there is no tomorrow.”
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