Built for the Outdoors: How Aidan Kane Found His Direction
Portrait of Aidan Kane. Courtesy photo.
Aidan Kane, E’26, graduated this spring with a degree in chemical engineering. During his time at Northeastern, he gained extensive co-op experience and served as Project Lead for an initiative at the Sherman Center.
Aidan Kane just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering this spring. Coming from a suburban town in New Jersey, Kane was excited to move to a city like Boston for his studies. His interest in chemistry was inspired by a high school teacher/mentor, as well as his reaction to Hurricane Sandy, when he realized he wanted to be a part of creating solutions with a lasting impact on the world. While considering his college options, he was initially drawn to Northeastern through the raving reviews of a friend. Upon visiting the university, Kane was impressed by the campus and the Co-op Program. In his words, Northeastern gave him “a little taste of home.”
Co-ops and extracurriculars
Kane completed three co-ops during his time at Northeastern. His first was at Pfizer as a bioprocess research and development co-op, working with process development teams. He looks back fondly on his supervisor and colleagues, and credits the experience with helping him realize that process development wasn’t the direction he wanted to take his engineering career. His second co-op brought him to Sage, a medical engineering consulting firm, where he worked as a product development engineer alongside multiple startups on their medical devices. Though the role confirmed that the medical field wasn’t the right fit, it pointed him toward his third and final co-op. He worked at WHOOP as a mechanical engineering co-op, contributing to hardware design for Bluetooth systems in next generation products. Kane appreciates the level of responsibility he’s been given, working on products with meaningful impact for the company.
Kane with Niall Horan, brand ambassador for WHOOP. Courtesy photo.
Beyond the classroom and co-ops, Kane participated in club lacrosse during the first half of his time as an undergraduate. He enjoyed being able to take a break from the often-difficult coursework of engineering to exercise with some of his best friends. He eventually became an events coordinator for the club, planning mixers and service opportunities to boost teamwork and engagement. Later, he joined Generate, a product development club on campus. There, Kane was able to turn his passions into marketable products, while expanding his community in a non-professional setting.
Recently, Kane was the product lead for a Generate initiative through the Sherman Center. Kane and his team worked with a company called Great Enterprise Combination, a Taiwanese manufacturer of air filtration systems for the semiconductor industry. They were tasked with finding a solution for a manufacturing bottleneck: when air filters are made, they come compressed into a flat sheet that needs to be separated for installation. This is both time-consuming and involves heavy manual labor. His team created an automated process and machine that would uncompress and separate these filters without manual labor. As a project lead, Kane recruited his team of engineers, oversaw pacing of the project and prototyping, as well as assembling and manufacturing the final product.
Kane is grateful to the Sherman Center for providing the means to complete the project as well as Northeastern for facilitating an innovative environment for the students.
Kane presenting his product with the Sherman Center. Courtesy photo.
He mentions that this was one of the only experiences that a team “could work on a project passionately and fail bravely without having a financial toll on your head.” He notes that this environment encouraged exploration and creativity instead of taking the “safe route” of developing a product. Kane is grateful for the entire experience and credits this project—developed while he was also on co-op at WHOOP—as one of the reasons the company offered Kane a full-time position after graduation.
Lessons and mentorship
Now that Kane has graduated, he reflects on a few lessons he wishes more students would take to heart. First and foremost, he encourages students to make the most of what Northeastern has to offer—in his words, failing to do so is “a disservice to yourself.” That spirit extends to studying abroad: Kane went abroad three times during his studies, and considers those experiences some of the most valuable of his time at Northeastern. He also urges students to treat co-ops as more than just jobs, describing them as steppingstones to a professional career that deserve genuine investment. Finally, Kane encourages students to build real relationships with their professors—not just for mentorship, but as a space to exchange ideas and perspectives. Those connections, he finds, tends to be the ones that last.
Kane on his DOC in Brazil. Courtesy photo.
Kane has been fortunate to have several mentors during his time at Northeastern. One standout is Teaching Professor Courtney Pfluger, who ran Kane’s freshman Dialogue of Civilizations experience and taught his Capstone Engineering class. He admires Professor Pfluger’s ability to strike a balance between professionalism and warmth with her students, and doesn’t mince words about her credentials—calling her “ridiculously gifted both professionally and academically.”
He also admires Teaching Professor Behrooz Satvat, a prominent figure in the chemical engineering department. Kane counts himself fortunate to have built a connection with someone of Professor Satvat’s experience and wisdom, and speaks warmly of their conversations as a highlight of his time at Northeastern.
Rounding out his list of influential professors is David Massey, who taught Kane in Calculus 3. At the start of the term, Kane felt overwhelmed by the material—but Professor Massey’s commitment to his student’s understanding made all the difference. He would revisit concepts as many times as needed, approaching them from entirely new angles until they clicked. Kane has stayed in contact with him since, and credits Professor Massey as one of the more meaningful mentors of his academic journey.
The future
With graduation behind him, Kane is stepping into a full-time role at WHOOP. Looking further ahead, he’s open to pursuing a graduate degree, though he believes gaining industry experience first will round out his skill set in ways that the classroom can’t. Long-term, Kane plans to stay in product development, drawn to work that empowers people to pursue the hobbies and activities they love. He’s passionate about adventure and staying active himself, and hopes to channel that into designing garments and physical goods that help people get outside and live the way they want to. The specific company is still an open question—but the direction is clear.