Growing up, Emilio Nanni knew his father enjoyed his job and that one day he would follow in his dad’s footsteps. What he didn’t realize was that those footsteps would one day echo on the same campus.

The son of Antonio Nanni, the Jones Professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering, Emilio has always been drawn to teaching and doing research but “needed to figure out which field.”

 
Year: junior
Major: double major in physics and electrical engineering
Hometown: Rolla, Mo.
Listens to: Everything from Styx or Queen to rap and techno

Now in his second year with the Residential College’s Global Research Learning Community, Nanni’s favorite class exercise from last year’s course was a four-day trip to Sandia National Labs in New Mexico. It was there he met UMR graduate Joan Woodard, Math’73, who is now executive vice president and deputy director at Sandia. “It’s inspiring to see what can be done with a good education,” he explains.