When the Wisconsin Alumni Association chatted with Grace in the HSX (Helically Symmetric eXperiment) lab, she felt that familiar flutter of being in over her head — the same feeling she’d had as a freshman when she first saw the towering stellarator.
We asked Grace how the Wausau native ended up at UW–Madison. She laughed, a genuine sound that filled the room, echoing off the high-tech equipment that surrounded her. “I wish I had a really good poetic story about growing up dreaming to come here, but I really don’t.” Madison wasn’t even close to the top of her list. “It came down to Minnesota or Wisconsin, and honestly? I chose the UW because they had a strong engineering program, and I thought, ‘You know what? I can make this the experience I want.’”
She paused, and a smile crept across her face. “Looking back now, I could not be more thankful. I’m so glad I got denied from all those other schools, because I ended up here, and this place shaped me into who I am today.”
Grace’s dad was her inspiration. “He was a civil engineer. Growing up, he’d take us to construction sites — we’d watch bridges get demolished overnight and rebuilt in weeks. I thought it was incredible, seeing him use math and science to help people in their everyday lives.” She gestured around the lab. “But I chose nuclear engineering on my application kind of out of spite against him, if I’m being honest. What I learned here is what kept me in the industry and made me such a passionate advocate for it.”
Grace shared stories about living close to campus to avoid walking in the cold, about taking every 7:45 a.m. class she could because by 4 p.m., her brain was done for the day. She spoke about spending time between classes in Engineering Hall asking PhD students questions that were “way below their pay grade” and how those grad students helped spark her excitement about engineering.
“My best memory of the UW?” Grace’s voice softened. “The friends I met here. I don’t have a childhood best friend from kindergarten — friends came and went. But sophomore year, I remember thinking, ‘I hope these people stay in my life forever.’ That was the first time I’d ever felt that way about friends.” She smiled. “From camping in cornfields because they were on the water ski team with me, to my random freshman roommate who I never thought would work out — these people are still in my life.”
The conversation shifted to Miss America, and Grace’s demeanor changed slightly — more measured, more reflective. At first, she chose the pageant path for one reason: to make money. “Tuition is expensive, and I needed scholarships,” she explained. “That’s really how it started. My summer job wasn’t cutting it. I competed for the scholarships, but I also saw it as an opportunity to talk about energy to an audience that doesn’t normally hear about it.”
Her passion for the future of nuclear energy is clear. She travels around the world to promote the industry. “When people ask me about nuclear energy,” Grace explained, “they always bring up Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima. And I say, ‘Okay, great, let’s talk about them.’ We do. But then I ask, ‘What else?’ Because from a global energy generation perspective, that’s it. Those three incidents. That’s the conversation.”
Grace’s eyes lit up when asked about her new book. “Harnessing Optimism. Actually, that’s not the official title, but that’s what started it.” She laughed at the memory. “A coworker once told me, ‘Grace, you have a disgusting amount of optimism.’ And something clicked. I share this understanding of the frustration with the world — climate change, politics, everything feels like we’re doomed sometimes. But I think it’s worth it to be hopeful. It’s worth it to find joy, to believe in the best in yourself and the people around you, not just for you, but for the generations to come.”
And what did she want the graduates to take away from her commencement speech? Grace reflected on her first day as a freshman, feeling completely overwhelmed.
“You know,” she said quietly, “when I was a freshman and sophomore, I tried to double major in life science communications. I knew I liked talking about science to the general public. But they wouldn’t let me — different college, different rules. I kept taking courses anyway, learned video editing, communication skills. And when that path closed, I found others. Miss America taught me those skills through trial by fire. That’s what I want graduates to know. It’s okay to do it scared. Just take that first leap and see what happens. Always say yes. The worst thing that happens is you end up in the same spot you were before.”
Most importantly, she shared the biggest lessons she learned from UW–Madison: that the path forward isn’t always clear, that getting denied can lead to better opportunities, that the friends you make matter more than you realize, and that a disgusting amount of optimism might just be the secret ingredient to changing the world.
