David Edmondson, former track and field athlete and mechanical engineering graduate student is the embodiment of hardwork and passion with a free-spirited nature.
Edmondson shared that attending Auburn University came as a surprise to everyone. With difficulties getting his recruitment process started, being from Old Harbour, Jamaica, he explained that he managed his own schedules. His perseverance turned into success, as he was eventually recruited and fell in love with Auburn.
"I definitely grew as an athlete, as well as a person. I was involved in lots of activities here such as, Black Student-Athlete Council and Student-Advisory Committee (SAAC)," Edmondson said. "I built a whole community around athletics with my involvement in track and field, and that truly was the beginning of my understanding of the Auburn family and what it meant to support each other," Edmondson said.
Reminiscing the balance of a student athlete, he recalled the memorable time.
"That competitive nature, being an [Auburn] tiger, transferring that into engineering, definitely was a fun and exciting experience," Edmondson said.
Resilience, persistency and humility are key characteristics from athletics that he carries with him into his professional career. Always aiming to better himself, Edmondson expressed that these are crucial to his everyday life.
When he came to Auburn, one of his main goals was to show that he could be successful academically and be a part of the number one conference in the country, and compete well. Meeting this goal, Edmondson encourages young student athletes to push through the difficulties.
"Find your community, broaden your network and know your why and continuously remind yourself of it," Edmondson said.
Proud of his fellow mechanical engineers, he spoke about advising the Auburn senior design team that set a national record in a naval engineering race.
"If you put the hard work in and you have a group of people who are willing to succeed and get the best product out there, when you have a team like that, I was able to hone that mentality into them, to ensure that we had the best product out there," Edmondson said.
Edmondson expressed that he was able to learn a lot from the previous year, which he felt aided him in the win, earlier this year. Going back to the drawing board, he said there were three things he needed to ensure success: students who were passionate about what they were doing, students with prior knowledge or expertise and planning to correlate intervals with the correct time.
On the topic of guiding young engineers, Edmondson has two pieces of advice.
"Showing them that what they're doing has impact. Not only ensuring that they're getting something out of it passion wise, but technical wise," Edmondson said.
Regions SEC startup win was a team effort, Edmondson said, as he and David Hollinger were able to create StrideSync. Designed to help runners perform better, StrideSync is an app that provides direct biomechanical data to people in need and helps prevent potential serious or long-term injuries.
After receiving his undergraduate degree, there was a certain direction he wanted to go next. Eager to expand his knowledge Edmondson wanted to further his studies in rehabilitation devices within medical technology, as well as system controls and robotics.
Expressing his gratitude to the guides who helped him achieve his goals, Edmondson credits Dr. Chad Rose, Dr. Kyle Schulze, Dr. Damion McIntosh, Meagan Hooshyar, and Janice Robinson.
In terms of current plans, Edmondson is actively searching for engineering opportunities to kickstart his career journey, and is undecided on the topic of returning to track and field. He shared that a dream of his is to find a way to merge his two passions together.
"That's where I can create the best solutions to whatever I'm doing, is being able to use my technical knowledge that I learned in engineering, as a mechanical engineer and help athletes recover from injuries and enhance their performance with robotic devices," Edmondson said.
Passionate, hardworking and free-spirited, are words that Edmondson believes those close to him would use to describe him. Some of his cherished interests are dancing and DJing and are hobbies he feels represents his easygoing character.
President of the Caribbean Student Association at his time at Auburn, he and Jasmine Norman were the creators of the organization, exposing the Auburn community to Caribbean culture.
Edmondson was also the radio show host of Cultural Fusion, a personal way for him to better his public speaking skills and share culture. In Cultural Fusion, he played as much music as he could find from different cultures.
"I tried to touch on the Black culture, Latinx culture, my culture as a Caribbean, UK culture. I was trying to expose the Auburn family or people who would listen, to music we wouldn't just normally hear on the radio station," Edmondson said.
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