Distinguished Young Women program pushes OMHS grad to pursue ‘pipe dream’

Switzerland, it turns out, really fits Ali Wood’s personality.

“It’s very tidy and clean and prepared,” Wood said, which works out great for her, considering she isn’t planning on leaving any time soon. 

When Oak Mountain High School graduate Ali Wood applied to the master’s program at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology with her husband, in addition to applying to seven other master’s programs in the U.S., they reminded themselves to be realistic. Not only was it all the way in Switzerland, but it was also consistently ranked in the top 10 technology universities in Europe. 

Both were research assistants and graduating with an electrical engineering degree from Brigham Young University. 

“Graduate school was something that we both really wanted, but we didn’t want the ‘normal’ grad school experience,” Woods said. “It [Switzerland] was really a pipe dream.”

When both Wood and her husband were only accepted to their dream program in Switzerland, along with Brigham Young’s master’s program, but none of the other schools, they knew it was meant to be.

“It was pretty cut and dry then,” Wood said. “So we made the decision to move abroad about four months later. We sold everything we had, flew to Switzerland with a couple suitcases, and now we’ve been here for two years.” 

Much of her commitment to pursuing her dreams she credits to strong academics and the Distinguished Young Women program, previously called America’s Junior Miss, where she got to know dozens of other young women who wanted to make a difference in the world. The Distinguished Young Women’s program is the largest and oldest scholarship opportunity for high school girls, where they participate first in local chapters, then statewide and finally in national competitions. It consists of different competitions in categories that include interview, fitness, scholastics, self-expression and talent. 

“I fell in love with the program. It promotes being well-rounded, smart and intelligent and a successful human being in all aspects in my life,” she said.

Through it, she was also awarded enough money to pay for her first year of college.

Woods got her initial taste of adventure when she spent her first year of undergraduate education studying in Hawaii after she was awarded a vocal performance scholarship. She spent her next three years at college in Utah. 

Both of these experiences contributed in easing the inevitable culture shock she experienced after moving to Switzerland, she said. 

Since coming to Switzerland two years ago, she said she fell in love with the culture and her master’s program. Her program focus is in robotics, specifically in micro and nanobiotics, which have to do with small-scale equipment and robots, often in the healthcare field. 

“It puts me in a really unique position here,” Wood said.

She explained that although there’s a trend in the United States in developing medical home diagnostic tools, the trend hasn’t quite taken off in Europe, so it allowed her a more open field.

Wood also took several courses and worked on projects in entrepreneurial engineering, which ultimately led her to begin work on developing a new venture — her own venture — focused on infant health care. She worked with the medical school and is almost done writing her final thesis addressing home diagnostic tools for families to use to eliminate the trips and bills incurred with doctor visits. 

Although at the moment, she said she has put her thesis on hold to prepare for another dream: having a baby. She plans to finish her thesis after her leave of absence.  

“I will be living my customer’s life, so I’ll have to be motivated,” she said, laughing.

The ultimate goal is to be a stay-at-home mom and own her own company, though she knows it’s going to be difficult to do both, Wood said. 

“I want to give my children some of these experiences I had, to open their eyes to all the possibilities, so that they know there’s not just one place in the world,” Wood said. “We want to introduce them to different cultures and different experiences, and to be successful financially so that we can do that. But we also want to give back.”

Wood said the goals for their family are to one day contribute scholarship money so that other kids in Birmingham or Utah would be able to have some of the rare opportunities they did. Funding startup companies, especially companies like the one Woods is trying to create, would be another way she wants her family to give back one day.

“That’s the real dream,” she said.

As far as dreams go, Wood said that the most important thing is to simply be brave enough to have one and to take baby steps toward it.

“That’s what really matters,” she said.