Taylor Bogan

Taylor Bogan understands adversity. More importantly, she understands how to rise above it.

Her path to graduation today included her own battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and helping her mom fight stage four throat cancer.

It included a trip with Engineers Without Borders to Tanzania to upgrade kitchen facilities at a school so that they could provide their 600 students three meals a day.

It included internships at ComEd and a job in one of NIU’s residence halls.

It included active memberships in the Society of Women Engineers, the National Society of Black Engineers, and Alpha Omega Epsilon international engineering sorority.

It included earning the prestigious Forward Together Forward Scholarship, which honors not only excellence in the classroom, but also excellence of character.

Through it all she has been there for her fellow classmates. She’s known for her small acts of kindness, such as offering tutoring sessions, and things like doing laundry for a student whose life was in turmoil.

Dec. 13 she earned her degree in electrical engineering with an emphasis on biomedical engineering. The next day, she headed  back to Tanzania to work again with Engineers Without Borders. From there, her path will take her to a job in Chicago and plans for graduate school.