When Logan Wilcox joined Missouri S&T’s first cohort of the Kummer Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) Doctoral Fellows program, he didn’t know exactly where he would end up. 

Now, he’s a lead engineer at GE Aerospace, using his skills to develop real-world solutions that impact air safety worldwide. 

A native of St. Louis, Wilcox started at S&T in 2015 and earned  a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering in 2020 and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 2025. 

The I&E Fellows program was brand new when Wilcox started work on his Ph.D. The program offers funding for doctoral students with a strong emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship and offers opportunities for career development and to present their research.

“Going in, I didn’t quite understand what it meant to be an I&E Fellow. After graduating, I believe I do. Specifically regarding innovation, I have begun to develop a grasp on IP (intellectual property),” he says. “My time at S&T has led to multiple pending patents and quite a few copyrights. Without the I&E program, I wouldn’t even have thought to pursue these.”

One of Wilcox’s pending patents  is for a microwave-based method to manufacture composites. The project caught the eye of the U.S. Navy and led to a two-phase cross-department project. 

Wilcox’s other pending patent is for a passive, non-contact, fully metallic electromagnetic micro-strain sensor. NASA fu, which is currently in phase one. Both patents are project-driven and tied to cross-disciplinary research initiatives.

As a lead engineer at GE Aerospace in Cincinnati, Ohio, Wilcox works in ultrasonic inspection technology , developing various ultrasonic non-destructive evaluation methods for metal and composite aircraft engine components.

“I specifically work in the ultrasonics group,” Wilcox says. “Our group develops new techniques and methods to inspect the next generation of aircraft engines and assist in the transition of technology to production environments.”

Wilcox began work in non-destructive evaluation in 2019 as an undergraduate research assistant at S&T and his passion for the field has grown ever since.

“After interning with GE Aerospace during summer 2025, I knew immediately that it was the place I wanted to be. With the purpose of ‘To invent the future of flight, lift people up and bring them home safely,’ GE Aerospace is truly dedicated to safety over anything else.”

Wilcox says the I&E Fellows program helped him land his dream role because of the valuable skills he developed.

“I think the aspect of innovation helped more so than anything else,” he says. “The skills I developed during my program enabled me to approach problems with a unique point of view.”

Wilcox has advice for students at S&T: focus on the fundamentals.

“In the age we currently live in and with the tools at our disposal, it can be really easy to ignore the fundamentals. But those are the things that can make or break a good engineer,” he says. “Sometimes the best tool we have is just going back to the original data. The ability to understand the data is more significant than simply asking Chat GPT to interpret it or being unable to understand generated code. If someone asks you a question, you have to be able to explain it.”