Fatemeh Heydari ’25: Combining Two Disciplines

A passion for engineering and a drive to achieve two degrees in only four-and-a-half years have led Fatemeh Heydari to be the first student in recent years to complete degrees in textile engineering and biomedical engineering simultaneously. 

“I saw that the programs are a really good match together and really complement each other,” Heydari says. “There have been quite a few classes that overlapped, which is thankfully why I’m able to graduate with just one extra semester.”

As a student who is continuously seeking to expand her skillset, Heydari has taken advantage of her NC State resources while simultaneously pursuing opportunities off campus. 

This past summer, Heydari completed an engineering internship at AP Emissions Technologies, a leading automotive manufacturer, where she developed a newfound respect and understanding of industrial manufacturing. 

“I think I’ll definitely stick with biomedical and textile engineering, but I’m not intimidated by the manufacturing aspect of it now,” she says. 

With the help of faculty like Assistant Professor Thomas Schroeder and Professor Raoul Farer, mentors who she feels have helped her have a well-rounded college experience, Heydari balanced a rigorous course load with multifaceted pre-professional roles. 

As she applies to graduate programs in North Carolina, Heydari says she will carry the skills she learned while obtaining her undergraduate degrees with her long after graduation. 

What drew you to study textile engineering and biomedical engineering together?

I really liked the idea of combining the artsy side and the STEM side, and that’s why I went into textile engineering (TE). And then, I kind of wanted my job to have more of a human value to it. And that’s why I wanted to do biomedical engineering (BME) with it. And especially because I also saw that the programs are a really good match together and really complement each other. There’s a lot of work being done with textiles in the BME field, and I think that’s really cool 

I definitely think textiles adds to the BME field rather than vice versa, but in a lot of my BME classes, we talk about tissue engineering,  scaffolding and stuff like that, which are often made out of textile materials. Especially the polymer engineering that we go into a lot for TE definitely helps with that. 

At the beginning, I was a lot more overwhelmed because I was told it had been quite a few years since someone had pursued TE and BME degrees at the same time. But once my advisors looked into it a little bit more, they were really helpful. And then after the third or fourth semester was pretty much smooth sailing.

Was there an experience that really shaped your interests or future goals?

Senior Design is definitely up there. I basically spent the year working with two other students to develop a replacement for kinesiology tape for our sponsor, Lycra. Getting to work on an R&D project with an industry “prompt” and applying everything we’d learned in class was a very valuable experience.

Also, BME does this thing where you have a design project every year, so doing those projects was really beneficial, because it helps you apply all of that theoretical knowledge to something hands-on.

How did you find your community at NC State?

I actually found my community both in and outside of my majors. For example, the roommate I happened to be paired up with for my first year is one of my closest friends. 

In regard to my specific programs, I became close with the people I was in classes with, because the textile engineering program is a pretty small program, so you go to class with similar people every day. Because of this, you’re bound to talk to each other and say, for example, “Hey, what did you get for this question?” And then you start talking about something else, and gradually it turns into, “Do you want to get food after this class?”

What advice would you give your first-year self?

I would say to talk to people in your major, get to know what they’re up to and be confident in the skillset that you have. Personally, I didn’t start applying to things until the end of my sophomore year, just because I felt like I didn’t have enough experience until then. The thing is that a lot of programs are willing to train you and help along the way, and “fun” club experiences can be extremely beneficial too.