Wausau Woman First Nuclear Engineer to Compete in Miss America Contest

Wednesday, December 14th, 2022 -- 8:00 AM

(By Rich Kremer, Wisconsin Public Radio) A University of Wisconsin-Madison student from Wausau will be the first nuclear engineer to compete in the Miss America contest Dec. 15.

According to Rich Kremer with Wisconsin Public Radio, Grace Stanke, who was crowned Miss Wisconsin in June, is using her platform to advocate for nuclear energy while showing women they can succeed in male-dominated industries.

Stanke's interest in engineering is familial. Her father was a civil engineer and she grew up on construction sites in and around Wausau. In high school, she took dual credit college courses and became interested in nuclear engineering.

Stanke told her skeptical dad about her plans to enter the controversial field. "He looked at me and said, 'Grace, there's no future there, there's no way you should do that,'" Stanke told Wisconsin Public Radio. "And I was a spiteful 16-year-old teenager. I said, 'Watch me.'"

As an undergraduate at UW-Madison Stanke, now 20 years old, worked with the university's HSX Stellarator facility, one of three magnetic fusion experiments on campus.

Stanke designed testing procedures to ensure a superconducting magnet that heats up materials in a containment vessel, called the Stellerator, was working properly. She said that work taught her about computer coding, chemical analysis and mechanical operation of control panels.

"There's just a little bit of everything that goes into it," Stanke said. "And I'm a person that loves to wake up and do something different every single day, and this nuclear industry is certainly accommodating to that."

Stanke said she sees nuclear power as key to reducing emissions from fossil fuels. She's launched a social impact initiative called "Clean energy, cleaner future," which aims to boost social acceptance of nuclear energy.

"We're at a point in time where our society is focusing more on zero carbon, but we're also at a point in time where we're quite literally running out of fossil fuels as a planet," Stanke said.

Stanke said she strongly supports other zero-carbon energy sources like solar and wind power, but sees nuclear power as the cleanest method for filling in gaps when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow.

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.