Kaitlin Perkins awarded College of Engineering Citizenship and Service Award

Each year the College of Engineering awards four outstanding seniors in the following categories: scholarship, leadership, citizenship and service and the humanities. This year, biological engineering student Kaitlin Perkins was awarded by the College of Engineering in the category of Citizenship and Service. 

Kaitlin is an NC State Caldwell Fellow and a member of the National Society of Black Engineers where she served as the Region Pre-College Initiative Chair. Her recognition with this award reflects her dedication to her passion of encouraging young, underrepresented students to pursue careers in science and engineering.

Kaitlin is an NC State Pack Promise Scholar, a Dean’s List recipient, received the NC State Multicultural Student Affairs Freshman Academic Honors Award, and was inducted in the W.E.B. Dubois Honor Society. Kaitlin worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the Materials Science and Engineering department and she has also interned with Johnson and Johnson and Vision Care.

Kaitlin is a very active Caldwell Fellow, where she has served as a STEM counselor for SATELLITE Camp and as the Director of Alumni Relations. She has served as a mentor for the Minority Engineering Overnight-Recruitment Program and the Student Advancement and Retention Teams (START) programs in the College of Engineering. She is an active member of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) where she has served as the Region II Pre-College Initiative Chair and the programs chair. As part of NSBE’s Walk for Education, she helped organize local events. Through NSBE, she has dedicated significant amounts of her time interacting with young minority students challenging them to pursue a career in STEM careers.

Further highlighting her passion for inclusion, her choice in pursuing a Spanish minor was guided by her experience volunteering her sophomore year at the non-profit organization known as Kids Café, where she tutored students after school. Because of the predominately-Hispanic population, she minored in Spanish to be more effective at communicating with those students.

Because of her citizenship and service to her fellow students and community, she was selected as the North Carolina Democratic Rally Introductory Speaker in September 2016, where she introduced former First Lady Michelle Obama. 

Kaitlin Perkins

Citizenship and Service Award