The Happy Accident: How Benetta MacAuley Found Her Joy in Materials Science and Music

If you ask Benetta MacAuley, a fourth-year materials science and engineering major at the University of California, Davis, how she ended up here, she will tell you it was almost accidental. 

“I didn’t even know materials science and engineering was a major,” she said. “My dad was the one who explained materials science to me. I thought, ‘Oh, this is cool.’ I clicked the button to apply to the UCs, and here I am.” 

Whether it was by happy accident or serendipity that MacAuley wound up where she is, over the past four years, she has found a passion for hands-on research and for playing her viola with the Video Game Orchestra at UC Davis. Even though she may not have had concrete plans for her journey, MacAuley has discovered that life can take unexpected paths that can lead to joy and community.  

Discovering Materials Science

MacAuley knew she wanted to pursue a STEM or engineering field in high school, but materials science? She only knew it from her father’s primer. Once she began taking classes at UC Davis and saw the variety of paths the field offered, she got more into it. 

“Materials are everywhere,” she said. “I have the freedom to explore different pathways and decide where I want to go. I could go more chemistry, more biochem, more civil engineering — it’s really flexible.” 

Things shifted for MacAuley after taking “Properties of Materials” with Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Erika La Plante. At the end of the class, La Plante invited the students to apply for an undergraduate research position in her lab.

MacAuley was selected, and being in the lab, putting the theories she had been learning about into practice, made it all click for her. 

She said, “I really like the hands-on application of doing research.”

In the lab, MacAuley investigates magnesium silicate hydrates as a more sustainable material for cement. Portland cement, the most common type used worldwide, is made from calcium silicate hydrates, which are processed at very high temperatures and account for nearly 8% of global CO2 emissions. In comparison, magnesium silicate hydrates burn at lower temperatures, requiring less fuel. 

Each undergraduate researcher in La Plante’s lab receives their own projects and is encouraged to write a research paper. MacAuley aims to finish her paper before she graduates this spring. The afforded independence is both liberating and rigorous. 

“It’s nice being able to take charge and work on my own research in the lab,” MacAuley said. “It’s challenging because I’m not just following instructions, I really have to think about things.” 

Game for VGO

Toward the end of her first year at UC Davis, MacAuley was walking near the Memorial Union and happened to notice a club tabling for their spring concert. It was the Video Game Orchestra, or VGO, a collective of student musicians who exclusively play video game music, and they were playing a song from a game MacAuley knew called Genshin Impact.  

“I was like, ‘Video Game Orchestra? I didn’t know that was a thing,’” said MacAuley, who has played the viola since fifth grade. “Being able to recognize the game and the song they were playing inspired me to join.” 

MacAuley describes herself as a casual gamer who gravitates toward co-operative games like Shape of Dreams and R.E.P.O., as well as story-rich, single-player titles like Octopath Traveler II. Performing video game music is an entirely different experience from hearing it while she is playing the game, she says.

"During the game, I'm typically focused on the gameplay. When playing in the orchestra, I'm focused on playing my part but also listening to the other instruments," she said. "Being surrounded by instruments playing the piece versus just hearing it through earbuds is really immersive."

MacAuley leads the viola section, which involves planning and organizing section rehearsals and taking attendance at full orchestra practices. So far, her favorite pieces to play with the group have been the electronica- and beat-heavy Ace Attorney medley and music from the Hollow Knight series, which prominently features strings as a leitmotif to express the games’ spiritual lyrical and melancholic themes. 

MacAuley is looking forward to VGO’s spring concert on May 3 at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts (time not confirmed as of this publication). The concert’s theme is “determination,” and it will feature songs from games such as Deltarune, Minecraft and Hollow Knight: Silksong. MacAuley anticipates the concert to have a bittersweet feeling. 

“I feel sad and happy that this is my last concert. Sad that I won’t be playing again as an undergraduate, but happy that I will have had an amazing three years with VGO. This final concert will definitely come with tears.”   

Unexpected Connections

While materials science and VGO seem worlds apart, MacAuley has found surprising parallels between the two. 

Both came with built-in communities. Materials science and engineering is a small major: MacAuley knows basically everyone in her cohort, which she describes as "tight-knit." VGO, with over 100 members, comprises small sections that work independently before coming together as an orchestra.

Both require solid foundations. In music, understanding how to sight-read what’s on the page is imperative, which requires knowing the notes. In materials science, lower-division concepts need to be mastered before tackling upper-division problems. And both depend on collaboration, whether it's MacAuley's viola as one instrument in an orchestra, or getting input from peers in the lab.

“In industry and even academia, you’ll find that it’s not just one major or one person working on an entire object or problem,” she said. “It's hard to get anywhere with just yourself. Making connections is very important.”

No Concrete Plans

As she prepares to graduate this spring, MacAuley isn't entirely sure where she'll end up next, maybe civil engineering, maybe something else. She’s pretty clear on what she doesn't want — “I don’t like circuits,” she said — but she knows she's open to exploring.

It's an approach that's served her well so far: clicking a button without knowing exactly where it would lead, walking up to a table at the MU because she recognized a song, taking on a research project that challenged her to think independently. Sometimes the best path forward is the one that wasn’t planned.