IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2021 - 19

" If you have
an environment
that is not supportive or
welcoming, where people
don't feel valued and have
a sense of belonging,
you're not going to
retain them, she
explains. "

major companies. One team
partnered with
Amazon Robotics
to help increase
the throughput in
fulfillment centers,
and another team spent
a year working with Boston
Scientific to design next-generation
disposable endoscopes. In Olin's Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship class,
students work on projects specifically
related to low-income or low-resource
environments. They might work on projects with social justice implications or
on other endeavors such as clean water
initiatives that benefit the environment.
Students and companies ideate together
to determine what companies are thinking about and how their needs align with
the interests of students and faculty.
As Barabino prepared to welcome her
inaugural first-year class this year, she
wondered how she could make a connection in such a socially distanced world.
She wrote each student a handwritten
note. She learned about the achievements
of each incoming student and in each
note, she pulled out some
of their background. She
was amazed at what they
had already accomplished.
They are volunteers, entrepreneurs, app inventors,
and already doing good in
the world. " That's the kind
of student that Olin draws, "
she says. And employers
and graduate schools know
this. They have a sense of
an " Olin student " and what
they can do. Olin graduates have so many opportunities waiting for them.
They get into the best grad
schools. They go to Harvard and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
They are offered jobs by
The goal at Olin College is to have constant innovation and change and to be transformative for
athenahealth, Google, and
engineering education and research.

1997, with the mission of " preparing
students to become exemplary engineering innovators who recognize needs,
design solutions and engage in creative
enterprises for the good of the world. "
Part of its founding precepts was that the
student population would have gender
parity, so since its inception, there has
been the intent that half of the student
population would be women. " In a field
like engineering, this is so important, "
Barabino acknowledges. Additionally,
Olin offers all students the merit-based
Olin Tuition Scholarship. Valued at more
than US$100,000, this scholarship covers
half of the annual tuition charges. Olin is
also committed to meeting the full demonstrated financial need of its students.
Barabino sees in Olin the unique opportunity to contribute to a place that
was founded on the premise that it would
be student centered, project based, and
experimental. Each year, Olin admits
roughly 85 students, with a total student
population of around 350. Olin is intentionally small, which allows it to remain
flexible and maintain its experimental
environment. At Olin, there are no departments; undergraduate education is inter-

disciplinary; and
students play an
important role
in their own education, cocreating
with faculty, working on teams, and
partnering with global
leaders. " The whole goal is
to have constant innovation and
change and to be transformative for engineering education and research, " Barabino says. Given this, Olin attracts highly
motivated students who are excited about
playing an important role in their own
learning. " We get students who are passionate and have a sense of purpose, and
they're looking to Olin to help them fulfill
that. They want to be involved not just in
their education but in what they're going
to do, " Barabino adds.
Olin has cultivated strong partnerships
with the tech companies right outside its
door along Boston's 128 tech corridor and
beyond with the goal of allowing undergraduate students to engage in problems
that are useful and will be used in practice.
As part of the Senior Capstone Program
in Engineering, students collaborate with

JUNE 2021

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2021

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