President, changemaker, engineer
CSE student and MSA president Mina Kian is on a path to empowerment for all
October 15, 2019
During her first semester at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Mina Kian approached the University’s Minnesota Student Association (MSA) about the absence of left-handed desks in the 17th Avenue Residence Hall. At the time, she wasn’t planning on getting involved in an accessibility project that would aim to break barriers for all University students.
Fast forward four years. Kian, a senior studying electrical engineering and, yes, left-hander, serves as president of MSA, advocating for systemic change and representing the voices of students across the Twin Cities campus.
“It had never occurred to me that someone like me could be in those positions of power,” said Kian, whose parents studied at the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering (CSE) as international students. “I was just the person working on the left-handed desk project. Then, somehow, I find myself sitting here as student body president.”
With that left-handed desk project in the rearview, Kian has been involved in everything from Student Senate and CSE’s Science and Engineering Student Board to faculty research in the computer science department. For the past two years, she has been on the leadership team for the Multicultural Center for Academic Excellence’s kick-off event, helping welcome over 400 students from diverse backgrounds to the University of Minnesota.
A University-wide Presidential Scholarship recipient and former recipient of the Oscar Schott Scholarship in Electrical Engineering, Kian has made advocacy and innovation key stepping stones in her collegiate career. She’s a firm believer that no matter where you are in life, you’ll never stop growing.
Learning to lead
While breaking boundaries in STEM is her main goal, Kian said her experience working in MSA has only accentuated her desire to create change, as well as given her an environment to grow in her leadership skills.
As student body president, it’s her responsibility to identify the causes of issues on campus and come up with ways to combat those issues.
“Everybody is supposed to come on this campus with the promise of being able to attain a higher education,” she said. “But, we don’t all have the same lenses and personalities, and identities. Coming here with that different perspective can sometimes act as a barrier toward students’ ability to succeed and thrive.”
Having the resources to address these barriers and the ability to help break them down is what Kian enjoys so much about being president.
And, the presidency is a team effort. Kian works closely with her vice president, Jael Kerandi, as well as her chief of staff team and other members of MSA. This collaborative environment is no doubt the kind she’ll face in an engineering workplace.
“You’re not going to have one engineer alone change the world,” she said. “It takes a team. Learning not only how to function within but also lead a team is going to be a useful skill for me in my future career.”
Just as her experience being president will impact her STEM career, Kian believes the relationship between the two is reciprocal.
When Kian joined MSA as a freshman, there were just two CSE students involved, and representation from other science fields was slim. Now, they’ve attracted more students from CSE, plus the Colleges of Biological Sciences (CBS) and Education and Human Development (CEHD). Kian said this allows student government to better function on behalf of the student body as a whole, in addition to adding different lines of thinking to the mix.
“I kind of had to pave the way to have more STEM students present,” she said. “Having STEM representation opens up a greater understanding of people coming from all disciplines and allows us to be more successful as a student government.”
Engineering a better future
Despite Kian’s passion for policy and the presidency, her heart is rooted in science and engineering. She aims to graduate with both the technical skills and the leadership skills to succeed, effectively merging her experiences in STEM and MSA to do so.
“I really think of myself as a changemaker,” Kian explained.
“I like to be able to know that the work I’m doing has a greater impact on the world around me," she said. "But I want to be able to do that in the focus of the things I’m interested in, which is math and science.”
Kian currently does motion-planning research in computer science Professor Steven Guy’s lab where she categorizes different types of pedestrian motion in order to better predict pedestrian behaviors.
“With coding, I love being able to build something that from day one you can see the results of,” she said. “And when you’re working in a research environment, there’s flexibility in that, which allows you not only create your own path forward but also support innovation.”
Although her focus is electrical engineering, Kian finds it hard to pick one dream. Robotics, artificial intelligence, aerospace vehicles—they all sound too enticing.
For Kian, the most exciting part of engineering is trying new things and taking steps that nobody has taken before. This is why she hopes to be on the front lines of scientific innovation, whether that means working on technology to address climate change or helping improve quality of life and sustaining the planet.
“I don’t want to be in some field operating in the status quo,” she said.
“What good is understanding things like math, programming analyses, and data structures if you can’t even understand how you can utilize those things to make this world a better place?” she asked.
An environment in which to thrive
According to Kian, a key to fostering a positive difference in the world is having an academic environment in which she can thrive. And, she believes growth only happens when you are challenged.
Kian said her most recent semester was the most academically enjoyable yet, mainly because of the challenge her course material posed—and the diversity of her professors’ perspectives and identities. She took a few upper-level classes, including one on semiconductors with professor Sarah Swisher, video game coding with professor Steven Guy, and a Farsi language course.
“It was by far the most diverse set of faculty I ever had,” she said. “I felt that every single one of those faculty members treated me with dignity, respect, and this deep desire to help me understand the material.”
Kian felt that this ultimately created a better learning environment. Plus, it speaks to the importance of diversity in STEM.
“When you have a collective of homogenous people, they aren’t going to be able to tackle a problem from every perspective,” she said.
“I think that your experiences as a person—the way you’ve been exposed to different things, the way you process things—can challenge the way that other people think.”
Kian firmly believes that the path to accessibility and equality in STEM lies not only in getting more K-12 students in the pipeline but also in self-realization for those currently in STEM fields. In her speech at the Class of 2023 Convocation ceremony, Kian highlighted the importance of acknowledging inherent biases and encouraged first-year students to think about where they are in their journeys of self-realization.
“It’s a journey that never finishes,” Kian said when reflecting on her speech. “Life is about finding ways to think critically about yourself through different perspectives.”
While she acknowledges that she’ll continue to improve, Kian credits the people she surrounds herself with—and her parents in particular—for giving her the confidence to succeed. She holds up her “superwoman” mom, who is also an electrical engineer, as a constant inspiration.
“I have so much growth to go through still,” Kian said. “But I’ve at least gained the tools and the skills here at the University of Minnesota to become a better version of who I am now.”
Story by Olivia Hultgren
If you’d like to support students in the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering, visit our CSE Giving website.