IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2022 - 3

Letter From the Editor
Celebrating 25 Years
of IEEE WIE
w
When I joined my academic institution
in 1994 as the first female engineer
faculty member in the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering,
I was astounded that the number of
women students in the department was
far lower than when I was a student.
I understood that females were
attracted to careers where they could
envision their contributions im pacting
humanity. Thus, my task to re cruit more
women and underrepresented individuals
into the program required overcoming
decades of poor public perception for
these engineering disciplines.
Being an active volunteer in IEEE, I
was inspired to act and created the Nerd
Girls Program, where interdisciplinary
teams of women used their technical skills
to tackle challenges in their local communities
and around the globe. The goals of
the program were to grow women's skills
and competencies while expanding their
leadership and communication skills.
One of the first projects we embarked
upon was building a solar vehicle. We
researched previous designs and found
those that could achieve very
high speeds.
The new perspectives the
young women on the team
brought to design were
astounding. They were
not focused on speed as
the top priority. They were
appalled that all the previous
designs lacked safety and
reliability considerations.
Furthermore,
are pillars for women overcoming the
dismal statistics of women in science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics
(STEM).
Today, reliability and safety are essential
components of every system, and we
can attribute this achievement to the
influence of women engineers on design
teams. Their perspectives have changed
the engineering landscape globally. This
is just one example of how different perspectives
and diversity has enriched system
design over the past 25 years.
In this issue of IEEE Women in
Eng ine e r ing (WIE) Magazine,
we celebrate 25 years of
IEEE Women in Engineering
(WIE) and the impact
of the contributions WIE
members have made to
benefit humanity.
We begin by introducing
Reliability and Safety
Karen Panetta
these designs
showed a total disregard for any human
factors aspects for safe operation and
operator control of the vehicle. We used
the knowledge gained on this project to
develop solar lighting for a lighthouse
and saved a historical landmark.
The women in the program all went
on to pursue graduate programs and
today are exceptional leaders in industry,
scholarly researchers, and entrepreneurs.
Little did they know, 20 years
ago, that the skills and experiences
acquired from building a solar
vehicle would translate to
bringing them to the forefront
of emerging technologies
currently used
today. Furthermore, the
experience positioned
them to propel their
careers, and they all
DECEMBER 2022
Expert Jyotika Athavale, an
industry leader and committed
IEEE volunteer, as well as
our own IEEE WIE Committee Chair
Jennifer Castillo. They both demonstrate
how impactful volunteers have
made IEEE WIE and our IEEE Societies
such powerful vehicles to support
and empower people to collaboratively
achieve new levels of success.
Young people today are mesmerized
by gaming. We are excited to share the
experiences of Joyce Weisbecker as a
game developer. She learned to think
differently about the world around
her and use unanticipated events to
enrich and forge new pathways from
her experiences.
We always celebrate our diverse
interests, including those in the arts.
One fascinating program that received
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2022.3202715
Date of current version: 7 November 2022
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE
3
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2022

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