IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - 12
lence and the National Weather Service
OS&T Systems Engineering Center's
Special Citation.
Now, at L-3, her role is "half individual contributor and half manager,"
a combination that suits her balanced
nature-there she has the opportunity
to define organizational strategy and
to make sure the appropriate staff are
assigned to tasks, but she also continues
to get her hands dirty with individual
projects. As Patel says, the position forces her to "understand lots of details as
well as the bigger picture of where the
company is headed and what the priorities are."
Patel poses for a picture with Young Engineer of the Year Jason Ayotte (left) and
New Hampshire Governor John Lynch.
student at Southern Methodist University, Patel enjoyed her core liberal arts
courses for how they introduced her to
"art, community, writing, societies, and
philosophy" because in these courses she
"learned how to look at problems from
lots of different angles and how to logically work through different scenarios."
These skills prove invaluable to an
engineer. As Patel says, "Many times,
new innovation comes from being
able to pull information from different
sources and perspectives and putting
it together to create a new concept or
solution."
Embracing Failure
Sometimes this also means failure,
something Patel believes is intrinsic to
the development process. As she says,
"Lots of times in experimentation,
designing failure modes actually helps
define the problem by figuring out the
bounds or limits of what works. I try
to think of cases to try to make systems fail to discover how well they are
actually working-sometimes, I see
many engineers just try to prove the
working condition or get to the working condition and then call it good. I
figure that if I can't make it fail anymore, then it's good."
Failure can also open you to new
opportunities, as Patel realized when she
moved to Oklahoma with her husband
Alex so he could pursue an advanced
12
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE
Staying IEEE Effective
When not at work, Patel stays busy
mathematics degree. As she searched
with various activities. She is a distinfor work that would provide her with
guished Toastmaster, the highest level
experience in electrical engineering, she
of achievement in the organization, and
applied for hardcore electrical engineercredits the group with helping her to
ing (EE) positions although she had not
hone her analysis and evaluation skills,
yet done pure EE work. On one interas well as making her public speaking
view, she failed a detailed circuit analysis
"more composed, articulate, and conexam-she hadn't had to analyze a cirfident." Her husband organizes chess
cuit in ten years.
tournaments throughout the year, and
This failure provided an opportunity
he and Patel, who is certified as a local
to sit down and contemplate what she
tournament director, spend many weekmost liked to do. Patel says that durends traveling to events.
ing this exercise she discovered that she
In addition, she estimates that she
liked a mix of multidisciplinary work.
spends 10-20 hours on IEEE activities
Her career path refocused, she joined
per week. Besides being secretary of
RSIS as a lead systems engineer and
her section, she participates in many
worked on the NEXRAD weathK-12 activities, is regional Secer radar upgrade, a positions Congress coordinator
tion that Patel loved
and conference coorIn the spring
because, she says,
dinator, and holds
of 2011, Patel was
"I got to get my
other roles in the
hands into everyComputer Socia representative
t hing - require et y, I EEE - U S A ,
for IEEE-USA for
ments definition,
IEEE. Of her
"Diversity and Inclusion and
signal processing
strong relationFuels Innovation in
algorithm developship wit h IEEE,
STEM."
ment, data analyPatel says she loves
sis, electrical design,
"the interaction with
software architecture,
others, giving back to my
software coding, training,
profession, and keeping up to
technical manuals, troubleshooting
date on what's going on."
at the radar-just a wide mix of sysIn the spring of 2011, Patel was a
tems tasks." Further proof that Patel
representative for IEEE-USA for "Diverhad made the right career decision came
sity and Inclusion Fuels Innovation in
when she received the prestigious RSIS
(continued on page 39)
President's Award for Technical Excel-
DECEMBER 2011
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - Cover1
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - Cover2
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - 1
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - 2
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - 3
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - 4
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - 5
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - 6
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IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - 8
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IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - 11
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - 12
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - 13
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IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2011 - Cover3
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