IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2022 - 10

in industry, one decision that is easy to
make is her choice to remain an active
Member of both IEEE and WIE. She
describes the network as " another family, "
one that has supported and taught
her much, and to which she has been
honored to give back as well.
In 2021, Gharib was named the first
person to receive the IEEE WIE Committee
Outstanding Volunteer of the
Year Award " for her contributions to
build a stronger and sustainable structure
of WIE Regional operations. " This
recognition comes after a history of volunteer
and leadership efforts supporting
the network.
Prior to her current role as a 2022
WIE Voting Committee member, Gharib
was the 2021 chair of the IEEE WIE
Regional Coordinators Subcommittee
and a member of the IEEE WIE
International Leadership Summits
and Awards Subcommittees. She is also
a past chair of the IEEE WIE Ottawa
Section, which, under her leadership,
received the IEEE WIE Affinity Group
of the Year Award, IEEE WIE Canada
Group of the Year Award for Large Sections,
and IEEE Ottawa Outstanding
Affinity Group Award for the first time
in history, all in 2020. In 2019, she won
the IEEE Canada Women In Engineering
Prize, which recognizes excellence
in young women engineering professionals
supporting WIE in Canada.
" WIE is important because it builds
your character and connects you to
so many people you can learn from.
When I first came to Ottawa, I didn't
know anyone and WIE helped me
make new friends. " she shares. Bringing
together teams of people to organize
events, Gharib was pleased to
see how many men got involved to
support female engineers and believes
the efforts everyone took to make the
programming as diverse and inclusive
as possible led to the Ottawa Section
earning its many recognitions. " It
was such a huge celebration for us, "
recalls Gharib.
Although she is now representing
IEEE's Technical Activities Board at the
global IEEE WIE level, she remains a
supporter of the Ottawa Section and-
10
more broadly-works to nurture the
relationships she made along the way.
" We sometimes lose these connections
and this network is so important, this
connection of mentorship, examples,
support from one woman to another, "
she insists, encouraging others to consider
the role IEEE and WIE can play in
their lives and careers.
Gharib also had a built-in support
system at home and is very thankful for
her family. " My parents and my sisters
are so supportive. We are five girls in the
family and all of them love the medical
field, except for me. They talk in their
own language, and I don't really understand
most of it, but they tolerate me, "
she laughs.
That may feel true at the moment,
but it seems likely that master networker,
synthesizer, and future-looking
researcher Gharib will find a way to collaborate
with even more fields as time
goes on-including medicine.
-Leslie Zucker
" Early in my career, we integrated
ultrahigh-speed photography to take
optical images of the effect of ultrasound
on very small bubbles known as
microbubbles. The ability to capture
images at one hundred million frames
per second allowed us to develop strategies
to improve ultrasound imaging
of tissues, " she explains. " We can hear
one microbubble deep in the body, and
the presence of the microbubble tells
us there is blood flow in a particular
region. This can be used to determine
whether the heart is perfused
with blood, or in cancer diagnosis,
where there is enhanced blood flow
that could indicate a cancer. We then
learned to use the same microbubbles
to change tissue properties and deliver
a drug or gene. "
" My lab learned to optimally make
Designing More Effective
Drug Delivery and
Diagnostic Procedures
Ferrara applies her training
to make a difference
2
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE JUNE 2022
2021 IEEE Biomedical Engineering
Award recipient Dr. Katherine Whitaker
Ferrara joined the faculty at
Stanford University four years
ago with the goal of translating
the research from
her laboratory into human
studies. The award recognized
some of the work
her lab is best known for,
research spanning all aspects
of image-guided drug delivery
and, in particular, the use of
research spanning all aspects
of image-guided drug delivery
lipid bubbles, and once we did this, we
looked for other places where we could
engineer nanoparticles and combine
them with imaging. " Since then, the
lab has expanded its scope to engineer
vehicles, including mRNA vaccines, and
worked on various kinds of nanoparticles
to deliver drugs and genes to specific
cells. " In some cases, the delivery is
via ultrasound technology, and in others
we put a peptide on the outside that
allows us to target a particle to a specific
type of cell, " she describes, adding that
" I've been very fortunate to have many
wonderful people working with me both
as colleagues and in my laboratory to
address many kinds of problems. "
A second area the lab is working on
is an ultrasound instrument that
has 1,024 channels. Historically,
ultrasound instruments
have had only 150-250 channels,
making them more
limited than other modalities,
but Ferrara believes
this larger channel system
Dr. Katherine
Whitaker Ferrara
ultrasound instrumentation to improve
imaging in the treatment of cancer.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2022.3155911
Date of current version: 4 May 2022
and new ultrasound transducers
will open the door to
imaging faster and visualizing
larger volumes, something the
team is testing in human imaging studies
currently.
A third innovation is in the use
of positron emission tomography to
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2022

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