IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2021 - 14

shoes at a local store during my summers off so I went back to that, " she
says. " A friend from high school came
into the shop and suggested I connect
Wilson helping to unite women
with her father about a job. " The friend's
father worked for a U.S. Department
As a founding member of Uniting Proof Defense agency and hired her as a
fessional Women Advancing Relationprogrammer/analyst even though she
ships and Development (UPWARD)
did not know any programming, assurUniversities Networking with Intel for
ing Wilson she would learn. " He was so
Tomorrow's Engineering & Sciences
nice, " she says.
(U.N.I.T.E.S.) Women, a mentorship
Wilson did learn a lot and also
program for female science, techmet many people, includnology, engineering, and
ing a bookseller from
math (STEM) students
Palo Alto who would
by Intel, UPWARD,
Wilson
become her husa nd Sa nt a Clara
eventually took a
band. She moved
U n i v e r s i t y, Dr.
leave of absence
out to California
Sarah Kate Wilfrom SRI to finish
to join him, takson (who goes by
her master's degree in
ing a role as a
Katie) is a menrese a rch engitorship pro. This
electrical engineering
neer
at the noncomes as no surfull time and then
prof it re s e a rch
prise, given that
began considering a
institute SRI Intershe has had some
Ph.D. degree.
national. SRI offered
really great support
an option for employees
throughout her career.
to take classes at Stanford-
The path to engineerthe early stages of remote learning started for Wilson when she
ing-and Wilson excelled at those.
was in her 20s after graduating from
" I said to a guy in my lab that I was
Bryn Mawr College with a degree in
planning to apply to Stanford for a
mathematics and moving back home
part-time master's degree in engineerto Annapolis, Maryland. " I had no clue
ing and he told me not to bother, " she
what I wanted to do and I'd been selling
recalls. " He said 'I went to Berkeley and
you went to some school I've never heard
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2021.3062918
Date of current version: 5 May 2021
of, you'll never get in.' That made me so

Onward and Upward

a

Wilson (right) with Andrea Goldsmith, dean of engineering and
applied science at Princeton University. Wilson and Goldsmith
were general chairs of WCNC 2017.

14

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

JUNE 2021	

Wilson at GLOBECOM 2014, an IEEE
Communications Society conference.

angry that I decided I was definitely going
to apply. "
She did and was accepted. Wilson
eventually took a leave of absence from
SRI to finish her master's degree in electrical engineering full time and then
began considering a Ph.D. degree. " I
took the qualifying exam for the Ph.D.
program and I did miserably, " she
shares. " I went back to industry for a
job as a signal processing engineer at
a biomedical company, but there was
a professor, Dr. John Cioffi, from my
master's program who kept recommending me for research assistantships at

Wilson on a hike at El Corte de Madera Creek Open Space in
Redwood City, California.
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2021
