When she’s not donning a crown, Lily Donaldson, CAS/BS ’20, wears a lab coat. The 2022 Miss United States is a scientist and doctoral candidate, building, designing, and testing prototypical horticultural lights for use in controlled environment agriculture to help create more resilient, equitable, and innovative food systems. “Little girls are enamored with the crown,” she says. “But after they get past the sparkle and glamour, I love talking to them about my work in the lab.”
1999: Born in Indianapolis, Indiana.
2005: Enrolled in dance classes and singing lessons. “I’m not much of a singer anymore, but I still play piano and violin.”
2007: Got her first library card, which she tucked under her pillow while she slept. “The public library was my favorite place to be growing up.”
Began competing in pageants with her twin sister, Cara. “My mom would always put us in different divisions; she would never let us compete against each other.”
2010: Made her theater debut as the mayor of Munchkinland in a local production of The Wizard of Oz.
2012: Moved to Memphis, Tennessee.
2015: Won her first major pageant: Miss Mid-South’s Outstanding Teen—part of the Miss America system.
2016: Began dabbling in coding for the school newspaper and in lighting for theater. Became the first student at Bolton High School to direct a mainstage production: ’Night Mother.
2017: Received a full scholarship to AU as a first-generation college student and member of the Honors Program. “I was intrigued with the idea of living in a big city like DC and was drawn to the internship and mentoring opportunities.”
Did lighting design for the Rude Mechanicals, AU’s Shakespeare theater troupe. Was also a member of the cheerleading squad.
2018: Switched her major from journalism to computer science after taking an introductory course with CAS professor Bei Xiao. “I never thought there was a place for me in STEM—but that’s just because I hadn’t been exposed to it. That class changed everything.”
Emailed CAS professor Arthur Shapiro, a color scientist, to ask if he could explain the spectral power distribution graphs in her lighting swatch book. “It always bothered me that I didn’t know what they meant.” At Shapiro’s urging, she signed up for CAS professor Teresa Larkin’s Light, Sound, Action class—her first physics course—and worked for two years in Shapiro’s Sensation, Perception, Reality, and Illusion Lab.
Cofounded with four AU classmates Art Technically, a nonprofit that offers arts and STEM programming for K–12 students at Title I and rural schools. “At my high school, 95 percent of students didn’t meet grade level proficiency in math. We also had zero funding for the arts. I wanted to give other kids—among whom might be the next Picasso or Einstein—the opportunities I didn’t have.”
Failed to place in the Miss DC pageant—but won the STEM and Top 5 Children’s Miracle Network fundraiser awards at the next year’s pageant. “The number one thing pageants teach you is how to lose gracefully. It’s a good life lesson for things like job interviews—which also aren’t always going to go your way. It’s not necessarily a reflection of your character or how hard you worked, it’s just sometimes there’s someone who’s a better fit for the role, or it just wasn’t your time.”
2019: Pitched a for-credit partnership with the Department of Energy’s lighting program as part of her software engineering class, serving as the client liaison and database engineer on the project.
Started a student trainee position with the Department of Homeland Security, working alongside data scientists to build software tools.
Worked as a software developer on a NASA DC Space Grant Consortium project at AU, developing a software library for a particle detector for ThinSat, a program that enables schools to launch low-cost satellites to orbit the Earth.
2020: Graduated from AU in three years and enrolled in a yearlong master’s program in lighting at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York.
2021: Began a PhD program at RPI in built ecologies. “I test lighting patterns on plants to see what makes the plants grow best without wasting energy. I’m very proud to be working on issues around climate change—which is the biggest challenge facing my and future generations. Research like mine ensures that regardless of how climate change and extreme weather impacts our ability to grow plants outside, we’ll still be able to feed the populace.”
Won Miss Memphis and Miss Tennessee. Named second runner-up at the Miss United States competition.
2022: Crowned Miss New York—and later Miss United States before a hometown crowd in Memphis. Traveled to all 50 states promoting her platform: STEM and arts education for underserved K–12 students. “I had so many awesome experiences—the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Boston, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in Hawaii, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 launch at Kennedy Space Center. But my favorite moments involved working one-on-one with children.”
Wrote a guest blog for the Department of Education about Art Technically, which has served 25,000 children through book and toy drives and workshops, including the popular astrobotany program.
2023: Completed her reign as Miss United States and crowned her successor.
Started a research assistant position at the Climate Change Research Initiative at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies.
Plans to return to DC and federal service upon completion of her doctorate. “I do think a lot of my success in life has been because I went to AU and because I was in Washington and had so many great internships and mentors. That led me down the path to where I am today.”