Over the next two weeks, as we approach the commencement ceremonies for the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Class of 2025, we will be sharing some senior spotlights of outstanding students from each CEMS department.
Graduating senior Jack McTasney is an Electrical Engineering major from West Nyack, NY. He is the 2025 recipient of the Atwater-Kent Award, which is awarded by the faculty of the Electrical and Computer Engineering program to a senior who has demonstrated extraordinary qualities of integrity and commitment to others through outstanding service to faculty, staff, and students at the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences.
How did you choose your major?
As a child, I stuck a penny into an outlet at the age of 4, and I started soldering with my dad when I was 8. After that, I started getting curious about how things like DVD players and walkie-talkies worked, so I took them apart in my spare time. In high school, I took a personal project course that culminated in making a robot that I could use to play with my cat. From there, I declared an Electrical Engineering major going into college and fell in love with the degree.
Do you have a memorable research experience from your time in CEMS?
In my freshman year, my EE-001 course (Now EE-1100) final project was a smart home system developed to be set up in a dorm room. This project, nicknamed I-Dorm, is what kickstarted my journey in research with the CBI (Center for Biomedical Innovation), joining the IEEE club, wanting to TA that course in my Junior/Senior year, and just about all of the other fun out-of-class academic work that I have done at UVM. My favorite part of I-Dorm was that it became a project that any student could join in the IEEE club to learn all of the basic circuit building/programming needed to join any other project in the club. While leading that project, I worked with several freshmen who had newly joined the IEEE club, and one of them, Ian Cassidy, now TA’s the EE-1100 course with me and will take over as the lead for the course next year.
Is there a class or professor who had a significant impact on your academic journey at UVM?
Dr. Eva Cosoroaba. No matter what questions I had or how much I was struggling with adapting to college life in my earlier academic years, she always heard me out and helped to the best of her ability. I would not have made it this far without her presence in the program.
Jack is an inspiring community leader with a real passion for lifting others up. In his first two years at UVM, he was constantly encouraging friends to try glass blowing—even convincing me to join in! As a key force in the IEEE student club, he brought fresh energy and connected countless students to exciting hands-on projects. As a TA for EE 1100, he transformed the course by updating labs with more versatile components and empowering students to dream bigger. Jack has truly shaped the path of so many future engineers at UVM.
- Dr. Eva Cosoroaba
Senior Lecturer and
ECE Undergraduate Program Coordinator
Have any internships or work experience helped to guide you on your career path?
Yes, during the summer of my sophomore year, I worked at the Burlington Electric Department as an Energy Analyst. My work there got me familiar with the concept of learning on the job. I had no idea what I was walking into, and I walked out with a program my colleague Alec Benedict and I developed for Flexible Load Management via Level 1 Electric Vehicle Charging. Last summer, I worked at Dynapower, where my primary project was developing an HIL (hardware in the loop) testbed for their new CPS inverter system. That job helped me further my knowledge in industry-embedded systems and inverter technology, and it was pretty neat to see power control on the kW/MW scale with tiny computers!
What are your plans after graduation?
I look forward to working in the area of high-power control systems. Since I was a kid, I have loved working with embedded systems, and getting a chance to work at Dynapower with their power electronics controlled by microcontrollers/computers/FPGAs has heavily influenced the direction I am pointed towards.
Is there any advice you would share with incoming first-year students?
Not many classes in an Electrical Engineering degree are “easy”, so take the courses you are most interested in! I have taken multiple graduate courses as an undergrad, and despite how terrified I was registering for them, the topics covered in courses like Semiconductor Devices and Materials, Autonomy, and Machine Learning were some of the most fascinating I have learned in my time here at UVM.
Is there an achievement that you are particularly proud of?
The work I’ve done teaching the EE-1100 lab course has been my proudest accomplishment here at UVM. When I took the course as a freshman, I loved it, but knew it wasn’t exactly what I had expected as an introduction to Electrical Engineering. When Erik Simkins and I taught the lab course in 2024, we shuffled around some of the existing lessons and wrote a few slide decks we thought would be interesting. The lab kits provided by Dr. Gallagher made it pretty easy to create these new lessons. Teaching the course this semester in 2025, I’ve rewritten nearly every slideshow to tailor it to the course without a purchased pre-made kit; the components needed are documented and easy to find as well. I also (with the guidance of Caroline Rooney) introduced LaTeX to the freshmen as an alternative to Word and Google Docs for writing reports, as well as writing new rubrics for lab reports that more closely resemble what students see in their later years of the degree. With all of these changes, I now believe that the EE-1100 course is a true introduction to the Electrical Engineering degree.
How do you envision your future in the next five years?
I envision working for a few years within the northeast, and then branching out somewhere I haven’t been before. I have always loved travel, and the work being done across the country and the rest of the world is AWESOME in this field. I would also just like to see the world. I don’t believe you can really grow as a person without exploring and introducing yourself to new people, places, ideas, and everything else outside of your comfort zone!
What extracurricular organizations and activities did you enjoy at UVM?
During my time at UVM, I served a number of roles in the UVM IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) chapter, including I-Dorm Project Lead (2022-2023), Club Vice President (2023-2024), and Club Co-President (2024-2025).
Parting thoughts?
There is no way I could have grown as much as I have and had the drive to work on the projects I have been a part of without the faculty here and the friends I made at UVM. Dr. Mike Rosen gave me a chance on the Vermont Early Mobility project and made me realize that my work with embedded systems could help people. The officers (and members) of the IEEE club all helped form an organization that gives back to the EE/BME department and has fun doing it. My friends helped me through some of the lowest points in my life and celebrated with me in the highest. I did not accomplish anything here alone, and the people who helped me get to this point are some of the brightest and kindest I have ever known.
