Class of 2026: Quinn Smith finds his formula for fun

Name: Quinn Smith

Colleges: College of Engineering and College of Science

Majors: Chemical Engineering and Chemistry

Hometown: Ashburn, Virginia

Plans after graduation: Going to graduate school at the University of Michigan to continue his research into renewable energy. 

Favorite Hokie memory: “My freshman year, we beat UNC in the first home football game. That one was crazy. This was the first year back from COVID for in-person games, and we got on TV, and everyone's jumping. It was crazy. I've been fortunate to go to some SEC football games, and we compete with them [on noise] with, like, 30,000 less people in the stadium. Lane Stadium can get rocking.”

For Quinn Smith, chemical engineering is equal parts challenge and joy. But the joy is something the Class of 2026 Outstanding Senior in Chemical Engineering occasionally has to dig a little deeper to find. 

During the fall of his senior year, for instance, he’d taken on 20 credits, including chemical engineering’s famously rigorous Unit Operations Lab. “People usually take it during the summer, but I wanted to have an additional internship this past summer. So I overloaded,” he explained. “I was like, ‘This is no big deal.’ It ended up being a big deal.”

By November, every single class had a project due. He had three exams in a single week. “This is going to be the end,” he thought miserably.

But instead of throwing in the towel, Smith focused on how privileged he was to study subjects he loved. “Wait, I enjoy doing all of this!” he reminded himself. “I can't let the stress overwhelm me and make it unenjoyable.’” Eventually the semester and the stress subsided — and the joy remained.

The perks of problem solving

Smith gets such a charge out of learning that he couldn’t even pick one major. As a first-year student at Virginia Tech, he planned to do chemistry, but midyear he added chemical engineering to the mix. It’s a combination that’s served him well.

“I really do enjoy understanding the fundamentals of chemistry, and then being able to take that knowledge and apply it to what I’m learning in engineering,” he said. “The biggest thing is the different problem-solving techniques that they bring to the table. Now it feels like I have a larger skill set that I can draw from when I run into any problems.” 

Smith started early turning his classroom learning into real-world experience. After his sophomore year, he did an American Chemical Society research exchange in Dusseldorf, Germany, where he performed novel mechanochemical synthesis of bi-metallic metal-organic frameworks and co-authored an academic article published in the Royal Society of Chemistry. (Also fun: hopping on trains to explore Europe on the weekends.)

Later, Smith did battery research as an intern at NASA Glenn Research Center, then two separate co-ops at ExxonMobil in Baton Rouge, where he was asked to tackle real research projects. “They’d give me an ill-defined problem and say, ‘We don't know if there's a solution, but we'll give you the opportunity to look into it and figure it out.’ Those were the kinds of projects that I feel like I have the most fun at. It was really cool being there and seeing, ‘This is what it actually looks like when you're really applying the stuff that we're learning in class.” (Also fun: eating gumbo and jambalaya while he lived in Louisiana.)

Learning because it’s cool

In addition to his other pursuits, including being the battery subteam lead for the Chem-E-Car student design team, Smith discovered that he loves helping people learn as an undergraduate teaching assistant for physical chemistry and an academic mentor for Sigma Phi Epsilon, coaching his fellow fraternity brothers toward better study skills.

One of his favorite tricks for excelling in schoolwork and research is to “do the thing that you're most interested in. Chances are you'll be the most productive — and you’ll have the most fun doing it.”

Luckily for Smith, he’s interested in a lot of things: not just chemical engineering and chemistry, but an array of hobbies including reading science fiction, hiking, backpacking, running, competing in fitness races, and brewing beer — “the stereotypical chemical engineering hobby,” he joked. 

Mostly he enjoys learning new things — and not just for exams, “but learning it because I think it’s cool. I don't know why it's difficult sometimes, but when you’re like, ‘Oh, I've got to finish this,’ you have to step back and be like, ‘Wait, no, I get to learn about this. I think that’s something that I'm very fortunate for.”