PhD student Lucy Du is a founding member and leader of the MIT MakerWorkshop, which has been much more than a workplace for Du, who also uses it as a hub for connections and inspiration. Credit: Gretchen Ertl

Making Her Way Through MIT

Graduate student Lucy Du designs novel prosthetics and seeks to inspire others to pursue engineering.

Lucy Du, a doctoral student in the

Now, as a fourth-year PhD student, Du is channeling her passion for building things into designing a prosthetic ankle that is readily accessible to people of all sizes, since current commercial designs are only suited for tall individuals.

She also shares her love of engineering in her pursuits outside of the lab. Throughout her time here (Du also earned her undergraduate and master’s degree at MIT), she has found ways to make building things and engineering more accessible to others — from creating a student makerspace to teaching high school girls. She even turned a role on Discovery’s reality TV show “BattleBots” into an opportunity to inspire kids about engineering.

Making for prosthetics

When Du finished her master’s in mechanical engineering in 2016, she was ready to experience something outside of academia. She went on to work at