IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2017 - 17

about an airplane that only goes 30-60 mi/h.
For perspective, a Hawaii-to-California flight
took three days.
As it reached the runway, the ground
crew would catch the airplane, grabbing
hold of a bar on the wing for balance.
They'd pull it into the hanger or inflate a
large hanger around it.
This was adrenaline-pumping, highstakes work. There was a lot that could
go wrong when the plane took off. "If I
were to mess up, I had to remember I
was still chosen for a reason," Kassalen
recounts. "I had to be confident in both
failing and succeeding."
Kassalen's time with Solar Impulse
ended in 2016. Now she's back in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at Covestro's
North American headquarters. She has
moved into data marketing and analytics, where she's studying the future of
mobility. To do this, she keeps an eye
on hot technologies and innovations
by researching and attending shows
like the International CES in Las Vegas,
Nevada. She looks at everything from
autonomous vehicles to bikes, even sitting people-movers that look like Segways, with the objective of developing
strategies for how materials will play
into these transportation changes in
the future.
Kassalen doesn't want to be put into
a box or fall into the trap of "I have
an electrical engineering (EE) degree,
so I can only do textbook EE work."
Covestro has allowed her to explore
some of her other passions and combine them into a unique and exciting
career path. This is something she really wants young women to know-you
don't have to lose any parts of your personality or personal interests when you
become an engineer.
"Just because you get a degree in
electrical engineering or chemical
engineering, if you have an idea of how
you want to combine that in the future
to do something completely different,
don't be scared to do that," she advises. "Just because no one's done that
before or it feels weird doesn't mean
that it's wrong."
-Katianne Williams

"wanted to work at the places that were
making these amazing things happen."
She began to choose classes with that
goal in mind, and, as a senior, she parShah is making amazing
ticipated in a senior design project with
things happen
an aerospace focus-developing a balloon-lofted satellite launch platform. She
When Rashmi Shah was young, she
continued on to Purdue University in
spent time helping her parents, both
Indiana for a graduate degree in aeroscientists, process and catalog samples
space and aeronautical engineering.
of plant matter that they had collectAt Purdue, she spent sumed. This wasn't a one-time occurmers interning at NASA, where
rence. Growing up in Nepal in
she was awarded a NASA fela math-and-science houselowship. Before graduating,
hold, science and research
she worked at a research
were a natural part of Shah's
company in Spain, somedaily life, with her parents
thing that she says gave
constantly encouraging her
her a whole new perspecand her brother to explore
tive on working in a global
the world. "Those early expeRashmi Shah
environment. All of this led
riences helped instill a thirst
directly to her current posifor knowledge and discovery
tion-research technologist at NASA's Jet
that has stuck with me throughout my
Propulsion Laboratory in California.
schooling and career," she says.
Shah's work centers around the nextWhen Shah was in high school,
generation technologies that will help
t hough, her life under went a big
people explore space and better underchange-she moved from Nepal to the
stand our planet. She helps develop new
United States. After the move, she didn't
instruments and algorithms to study
know how to act-everything was so
the Earth's environment. For example,
different. "Despite the best efforts of my
she is currently working on developing
teachers and my classmates, I felt like
instruments to measure the amount of
an outsider," she recalls. Take the first
water in snow packs or to quantify how
day of school. In Nepal, children lined
sea levels are changing near coasts.
up outside the door and waited for perDay to day, she looks at satellite
mission to enter, and yet, in the United
altimetry data. Altimeters measure the
States, children entered and left the
deviation of a physical object from a
room at will.
certain altitude, and this data is used
It was physics teacher Julie Hood who
to map surfaces-altimetry can show
saw beyond Shah's high test scores and
ocean bulges, measure changes in sea
recognized that she needed help assimiice, or map the topography of distant
lating. She encouraged Shah to join
planets. Shah works on calibrating and
smaller clubs and to take part in activivalidating the satellite altimeter data to
ties that would help her "better find her
ensure against instrumental biases.
voice" in her new home. Shah took this
On the research side, she looks at
advice to heart and joined the Math Bowl
new techniques using "signals of opporand the SECME Science Olympiad, along
tunity" for microwave remote sensing.
with other math and science societies.
These are signals from the direct broadThese interests pointed Shah in the
cast satellites used by companies like
direction of electrical engineering, and
DirecTV or SiriusXM that Shah is using
she chose to study at the Rochester
to test bistatic radar instruments-speInstitute of Technology. After watching
cialized antennas and software-defined
the Spirit and Opportunity rovers land
radios-to see if they can use these satelon Mars, she had further clarity-she
lite signals to create inexpensive ways
of measuring snowpack volume and sea
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2017.2746305
surface height.
Date of publication: 8 November 2017

Exploring the World

DECEMBER 2017

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2017