New Goal for the Fastest Woman on Earth
伊娃Hakansson has sights set on outer space
“Engineering is a genetic disorder,” jokes 伊娃Hakansson. “我全家都是工程师. My mom is a mechanical engineer. My dad is a mechanical engineer. My two older brothers are electrical engineers, 和 I’m a mechanical. 所以这是一条自然的道路.”
Hakansson received her master’s in mechanical engineering 和 recently defended her PhD dissertation at the University of Denver. The native of Sweden moved to Colorado when she met the love of her life, her now husb和. 她生命中的其他爱人, speed 和 protecting the environment, are why she calls herself a tree-hugging speed junky.
“And that’s a hard combination to satisfy, 因为当我们想到速度, 我们想到的是大型发动机, 污染, 噪音和所有这些.” She builds super-fast motorcycles, electric motorcycles. Her current pride 和 joy: The Killajoule.
“I realized electric vehicles would give me everything I wanted without that 污染 和 all the noise. I say that electric vehicles are like chocolate without all the calories. Electrical vehicles give me everything I want, 速度转矩, power but without 污染 和 without noise, 我很喜欢.”
Hakansson just returned from the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. “I go to an event that’s in August every year, 和 that’s when I can prove what I have done for the rest of the year, what I’ve been building in my garage. It’s kind of like my annual final exam.”
She did pretty well in that exam, setting a new record by zipping across the Salt Flats at 248.每小时7英里，或400英里.2公里.
“I couldn’t have built this motorcycle without all the knowledge I gained at the University of Denver. 这是肯定的!哈坎森解释道.
是的，女孩确实会造东西. Hakansson says she’s amazed at how many people are shocked when they find out she’s a mechanical engineer 和 that she builds her own electric motorcycles. “It’s kind of a shock to me arriving in the U.S. that that was such a common perception. In Sweden girls take up more than half of the engineering seats in the educational system. And the really popular 项目 like bio-engineering, guys can barely get in because girls have higher grades.”
Eva now has her sights set on outer space. She’s applied to NASA to become an astronaut.
“如果我被选中, the International Space Station is certainly the coolest office you can have in the world or out of this world.”
