Michael Roberts

William Michael Roberts is from Clarksburg, Maryland, and is a sophomore in Biomedical Engineering with a 3.43 GPA. When Michael was in middle school, he dreamed about playing in the NFL. He played football in middle school and high school. His high school football team ranked in 11 in the United States and won the conference title his junior year. Now that he is at Virginia Tech, he dreams about developing a device to help the medical field. He wants to use engineering to improve solutions in the medical field. Michaels says, if he could change one thing, he would ensure that people are treated equally. 

As a Virginia Tech student, he attended the Student Transition Engineering Program (STEP) and it helped him get off to a good start transitioning to Virginia Tech. He also stayed in the Galileo Living Learning Community and said “ Engineering is very hard, but staying in a dorm with all engineers offered me support.” As a volunteer opportunity, he has been involved with Project GiveBack for the last 6 years. It partners with companies to give back to the communities where they work and live. The weekend before Thanksgiving, they meet at local gyms at 5 am and build food baskets. His first year was very eye-opening because he had a hard time fully understanding the concept of poverty. He assumed that everyone had the same amount of food on the table as he did. This awareness encouraged him to find other ways to help communities in need. 

Michael’s role model is his dad, who is also an engineer because he always pushes him to be better. Michael states that his dad’s experience and advice have been valuable to him. Michael's favorite film is Home Alone because Kevin designs cool traps to dodge the burglars and his favorite cartoon character is Scooby Doo because his character is resilient, funny, always up to solve a mystery, and he loves to eat.