The College of Engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison announced recently that Grace Stanke is now Miss America 2023. According to UW-Madison, Stanke is the first nuclear engineer, and only the third Miss Wisconsin, to earn the Miss America title (Photo courtesy: UW-Madison).

As Stanke prepared for the Miss America Competition, she also was excited to bring her message to an even larger platform. “In addition to helping change public perception of nuclear energy and technology, I hope to inspire youth, especially young girls, to explore STEM and to see that going into these fields, including nuclear engineering, is an option for them,” she told UW-Madison.

In her role as Miss Wisconsin, Stanke aimed to help change people’s views on the notion of “nuclear” though her social impact initiative, “Clean energy, cleaner future.” Now, as Miss America 2023, she’s taking her clean-energy solutions message—with, of course, a strong focus on nuclear energy—onto the national stage.

A native of Wausau, Wisconsin, Stanke came to UW-Madison planning to study engineering. As she was going through the application process, the nuclear engineering major stood out.

As a freshman, she took the initiative to explore undergraduate research opportunities and ended up working on nuclear fusion research in the HSX stellarator facility. The HSX stellarator is one of three major magnetic fusion experiments at UW-Madison, which is world-renowned for its plasma and fusion research program.

That experience provided an engaging, hands-on introduction to fusion science and research—and confirmed for Stanke that nuclear engineering was what she wanted to pursue.

During her time at HSX, Stanke helped create tests for the superconducting magnets used in the stellarator, and she built a graphical user interface that helped analyze data from the experiments. The experience also fueled her passion for science outreach, and she worked on establishing relationships with high schools and revised the HSX website to communicate to a broader audience about fusion.

Stanke had an internship lined up for the summer after her freshman year, but then the COVID-19 pandemic began and the internship fell through. She scrambled to apply for other opportunities in the nuclear field, and was offered a co-op with Constellation, a company that operates 11 nuclear power plants and is the nation’s largest producer of carbon-free energy. She started her nuclear fuels co-op with Constellation remotely in fall 2020.

Throughout her undergraduate career, Stanke spent three semesters on co-op with Constellation, where she worked with a team of about 20 on a variety of company projects. Stanke contributed to projects ranging from low-power physics testing to creating models of the reflectors used in nuclear reactors to redirect and contain neutrons.

In addition to her co-op and engineering coursework, Stanke served as president of the UW-Madison chapter of the American Nuclear Society and has been an active member of the Wisconsin Waterski & Wakeboard Team. She also plays violin, which is her talent for the Miss America competition.

In June 2022, Stanke won the title of Miss Wisconsin. Being Miss Wisconsin is a full-time job, and her schedule was full of speaking engagements and public appearances around Wisconsin and beyond. For National STEM Day, she spoke to classrooms about nuclear energy. She also was the keynote speaker at the Women in Nuclear conference in Niagara Falls, New York, and she participated in a panel about nuclear energy at the Wisconsin Energy Cooperative Association’s annual meeting.