IEEE Spectrum March, 2007 - 41

RESOURCES
workforce the following year, with the help of MIT's Institute
Career Assistance Network. It was a contact there who alerted
her to the Picatinny Arsenal. In late 2004, Zirkind, who had
worked on military projects in college, sent in her résumé; the
following June, she joined a new robotics team there.
The job's collaborative nature fosters increased creativity,
and its heavy workload makes for little direct supervision, so
team members must be self-starters and adept at time management. She and her colleagues "like to understand how things
work and then make them better," Zirkind says. Despite
the omnipresent security concerns of working on military
projects-adhering to a strict system of document management
and keeping mum about job details at dinner parties-Zirkind
nonetheless finds it a pretty informal atmosphere.
The team wears a variety of dress styles, from ties to jeans,
and its members have different educational backgrounds
and nationalities. Two team members hold master's degrees
in mechanical engineering, three hold bachelor's degrees in
mechanical or electrical engineering, and one has a master's
in computer science, while Zirkind has a background in optics.
The team includes Chinese, Korean, and Peruvian engineers.
Collaborating with the team are several computer engineers
from another division who write proprietary code.
Members also have the option of working flexible schedules-from the typical 8-hour day to compressed workweeks.
Zirkind works 9-hour days Monday through Thursday and
4 hours on Friday.
She estimates that about 10 percent of her time is spent in
the lab and in doing outdoor testing. She spends 5 percent of
her time attending meetings. The remaining 85 percent is spent
at her computer working on funding proposals and certification
training, writing technical reports on testing results, discussing work matters with colleagues, and scouring the Internet
for information about robots and devices that could be put to
use by her team.
There is a dearth of women in her field, but Zirkind says,
"I'm used to it from MIT. It's not that big of a deal, because
we're all just focusing on the mission and tasks. Plus, all the
men are pretty different from each other. But I'm pretty introverted, which has its own negatives. I feel okay saying to a
woman 'Let's go to lunch,' but not to a man. At meetings, the
men often act very confident and feel comfortable talking at
length. I'll simply mention a particular point, rather than going
on about it."
Although the MIT alum who guided her to Picatinny was a
man, she cites the Women in Optics group of the International
Society for Optical Engineering (http://www.spie.org) as being
particularly encouraging to her during her job search. "It makes
so much of a difference in keeping someone on track," she says.
"I found it hard to get a mentor in school, and when I was looking for work, I felt so discouraged for such a long time. I don't
have any role models. I feel like I'm making a new path."
"My advice to engineers is to be flexible about their career
choices," she adds. "I never thought I'd work on EOD robots. I
just liked learning and doing research, and kept going farther
and farther."
n

About thE Author
SuSAN KArLIN is an award-winning journalist (skarlin@aol.com).
She has contributed to The New York Times, Forbes, and Discover.
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum March, 2007