SPRING 2013
@pennawe
N E W S F R O M P E N N ’ S A D VA N C I N G W O M E N I N E N G I N E E R I N G
FROM THE CHAIR
FElICE MACERA
DR. SUSAN B. DAVIDSON
Weiss Professor and Department Chair,
Computer and Information Science
Chair, Advancing Women in Engineering
Email: susan@cis.upenn.edu
Welcome to the first Advancing Women in Engineering
(AWE) newsletter! As you may know, AWE was founded
in Fall 2007 as the brainchild of SEAS faculty and staff
who were concerned about the persistently low numbers
of women in engineering. Convinced that women were
missing out on incredibly exciting opportunities to
“turn science into reality” and that the problem lay in
a misperception (or even ignorance) of what our field
is about, we set out to correct this by finding ways of
enticing women into our field, supporting them once
they were hooked, and creating social and networking
opportunities. Through the generous gift of a Penn
alumna, we were fortunate to be able to hire Michele
Grab as Director and work with her to formulate a plan –
and the rest is history!
We are excited to see the many initiatives that Michele
has started in five short years, from the Penn GEMS
outreach to middle-school girls, the Sleeping Bag
weekend, the pre-orientation program, and more. And
it is clearly working, as the numbers show: before
FROM THE DIRECTOR
KEVIN MONKO
MICHElE GRAB
Director of Advancing Women in Engineering
Email: mgrab@seas.upenn.edu
Welcome to the first edition of @pennawe! Since 2007,
the Advancing Women in Engineering (AWE) program
has been busy recruiting, retaining and promoting
women in Penn Engineering. We hope you will enjoy
hearing about all the great things AWE is up to as well
as hearing updates from some of our great alumnae.
The community for women in engineering at Penn has
never been stronger. Our undergraduate population is
32% women, master’s students are 31% women and
25% of PhD students are women. All are higher than the
national averages but there is always more to be done.
From our outreach programs with middle school girls
to our pre-orientation program for first year students to
our faculty events, we are working to encourage girls in
engineering and providing the resources and support to
help them achieve great things in engineering.
122535 1
2007, the average percentage of women transferring
out of Penn Engineering was a staggering 25%-35%.
Now we are seeing levels of between 7%-24%, bringing
the retention of women closer to that of their male
counterparts.
It is important to create a community of women, as we
are shaped by those around us. Having been in
computer science for over 35 years, I see the influence
of my mother in my certainty that it is possible – even
natural – to have a family and a career; the influence
of a young, smart, lively female instructor teaching an
introductory computer science class during my
undergraduate career at Cornell in the firm conviction
that I, one of five women in a class of 100, not only
naturally belonged but could excel; the influence of my
sister, a biochemistry major who in 1975 predicted that
the future of bio-science was computational, in my early
understanding of the importance of bioinformatics and
computational biology; and the influence of the young
women around me today in reminding me of how much
fun it is to imagine the future.
We hope you will keep in touch with us as you go
off to work in the field. You can have a tremendous
impact on our students by informally mentoring
them, participating on a career panel or some other
departmental event to talk about your career, or simply
being there to serve as inspiration – which you surely
are!
In the summer of 2008, I greeted 19 students as they
arrived on campus for the first AWE pre-orientation
program and I think I was as nervous as they were!
Would all the months of planning turn out alright? What
if they didn’t like it? It turns out I was worried for no
reason – pre-orientation went great (and last year we
had over 50% of the women in the class participate,
a huge increase from those initial 19 students). In
May 2012, our first group of pre-orientation sudents
graduated from Penn, and I couldn’t have been more
proud. That got us thinking, we wanted to keep in touch
with those who had been an active part of AWE while
they were here and we also wanted to let all of you who
were at Penn before AWE know about all the great things
we’ve been up to and that’s how this newsletter was
born. We want this to be a place where we can celebrate
our collective success through alumni updates, hear
about interesting happenings in the school, and
spotlight some great AWE programs.
Almost all the articles here were written by current
students so you’re really getting a student’s perspective
about current life in Penn Engineering. Expect to see
this newsletter in your mailbox or e-mail twice a year
and if you are doing something great, get in touch with
us so we can include it next time!
5/16/13 4:46 PM
PAGE 2
what’s going on @ SEAS
N E W S F R O M P E N N ’ S A D VA N C I N G W O M E N I N E N G I N E E R I N G
SEAS HAS A NEw MAjOR: A lOOK INTO NETWORKED & SOCIAl SySTEMS
The world of technology is rapid evolving, the world
in which we live, work, and play is vastly different
from ten years ago. Penn’s answer to this rapidly
evolving world is its newest major, the Raj and Neera
Singh Program on Networked and Social Systems
(NETS). Penn is the first university to offer a program
of this kind to undergraduates. NETS seeks to unite
the fields of computer science, systems engineering,
and economics. Students will learn how people interact
with one another through these new technologies and
how to make sure the outcome is optimal. Almost done
with its second year, NETS has added many new faculty
members and classes.
Two NETS classes were offered before the inception
of the program, the flagship class Networked Life
(taught by Dr. Michael Kearns) and Scalable and Cloud
Computing (taught by Dr. Andreas Haeberlen and Dr.
Zach Ives). Networked Life gives a very good idea of how
and why our world is connected.Cloud Computing seeks
to give undergraduates experience with the brand new
technology behind the cloud. The final project for the
class is to create a social networking site that is hosted
on the cloud.
semester. The goal of the course is to give students a
deeper understanding of how networks affect all of us
in our daily lives and how to make sense of them.
Being in the first class of a program has been a very
interesting, and rewarding experience. I initially heard
about the NETS (then MKSE program) my sophomore
year of high school. I had always seen myself going
into systems or computer science and I was always
interested in economics, especially game theory and
NETS seemed like the perfect blend of everything in
which I was interested. Being a guinea pig is not always
easy but it has been a very rewarding experience thus
far and I cannot wait to see what the next two years
brings.
The NETS program is still in its very early phases and
constantly evolving. More new courses are slated to
be offered in the upcoming semesters. We are all very
excited to see how this program evolves and keeps Penn
on the cutting edge of technology.
SUSAN GREENBERG
BSE in NETS 2015
Email: susangr@seas.upenn.edu
The newest course, Theory of Networks (taught by Dr.
Victor Preciado) is being offered for the first time this
For the past 5 summers, AWE has run the Penn GEMS
program for middle school girls. GEMS is a week-long
camp for approximately 70 middle school girls to
participate in hands-on math, science and engineering
activities.This past year was our first all-robotics track,
where girls spent the week learning about and building
all different types of robots. The other two tracks
did a range of fun engineering activities including
making nitrogen ice cream, discovering symmetry in
the environment, and building a robot. All the girls
in GEMS gain knowledge about what an engineer is
while doing fun and interesting activities. One of the
highlights of the program this past summer was getting
to hug the PR2 robot in GRASP lab! The girls toured
different labs in engineering and saw what amazing
things the engineers at Penn are accomplishing. The
program is staffed by different Penn female engineering
undergraduates, with different SEAS professors and
graduate students at Penn running the various activities
and labs. Overall, the girls got to see and learn that
anyone can be an engineer and there are a lot of
different ways to be an engineer too. You can see photos
122535 2
FElICE MACERA
PENN GEMS: GIRlS IN ENGINEERING, MATH & SCIENCE CAMP
Robotics track of GEMS testing their NXT robot’s ability to follow a line
and videos from past year’s GEMS programs at www.
seas.upenn.edu/awe/gems.
ElAyNA ZACK
BSE in MEAM 2013
Email: elaynaz@seas.upenn.edu
5/16/13 4:46 PM
PAGE 3
student news
N E W S F R O M P E N N ’ S A D VA N C I N G W O M E N I N E N G I N E E R I N G
BE SENIOR RECOUNTS HER SENIOR DESIGN PROjECT
With very little time remaining before end-of-semester
presentations, there has been a frenzied excitement
among senior design teams throughout the Penn
engineering school. Since my team’s formation in
our BE curriculum semesterly labs, we have been
eagerly looking forward to working together on this
program culminating project. The Lub Dub Club, as
we passionately call ourselves, focuses on delivering
hydrogel materials to infarct regions in patient hearts.
Infarcts are damaged areas of the heart wall that
occur as a result of cardiac damage, such as a heart
attack. These regions, which may not heal properly
over time, weaken the overall structure of the heart
and could lead to patient complications down the
road. Dr. Jason Burdick’s lab, who is mentoring us
throughout the project, focuses on infarct repair using
hydrogel materials. By inserting a support material
into the infarct regions, damaged portions of the heart
can heal accurately and strengthen. The only issue is
getting the hydrogel material into the patient. Current
studies have only been completed using open heart
surgery techniques which may not be available to
human patients due to complication concerns. Thus
our catheter delivery system will transport the hydrogel
materials directly to the heart without invasive surgery.
We will be leveraging the properties of a rapid
mixing hydrogel which is initially liquid when its
three components (polymer, initiator, and catalyst)
are separated. These components will be delivered
using a dual tubing system and then homogeneously
mixed through a specially designed static mixer before
implantation into the patient’s infarct region, at which
point the hydrogel’s gel network will form. We are
currently going through evaluations of our prototype
and eagerly waiting to present our work at the end of
the semester.
lOGAN TROPPITO
BSE in BE 2013, MSE in BE 2014
Focus: Drug Delivery & Nanotech
Email: troppito@seas.upenn.edu
SENIOR SEND OFF
On April 21, seniors gathered for brunch to celebrate their
graduation with AWE. Of the original 51 women who started their
Penn Engineering career with our AWE pre-orientation program,
44 are on track to complete their degrees in Penn Engineering.
Seniors are headed to PhD and Master’s programs at Carnegie
Mellon and Stanford, and to work at Honeywell, Scheie Eye
Institute and the Cleveland Clinic.
CIS jUNIOR RECOUNTS THE EXPlORATION TO FIND HER MAjOR
I came to Penn thinking that I wanted to study
bioengineering. On a whim, I decided to take a
computer science class during my first semester at
Penn. I had never written a line of code before, but
I quickly realized that programming was as close to
fun as homework would get. I began to see myself
incorporating computer science into bioengineering as a
career, perhaps doing research that required computers
to process massive data sets or to do complex modeling
of biological phenomena.
During my second semester, I applied for an
independent study within Brian Litt’s neuroengineering
lab. My first research project involved writing scripts
to perform data analysis on iEEG data from epilepsy
patients, looking for seizure biomarkers. After that,
my projects always had a bioengineering goal but were
heavily computational and required me to pick up new
computer skills that I later found valuable as I took
122535 3
more computer science courses. I quickly decided that
I liked bytes as much or more than than brain cells, and
under the advice of Brian and other members of the Litt
Lab, I decided to change my major to computer science.
I still work in the Litt Lab, but as a software engineer,
developing an app that helps epilepsy clinicians create
3D reconstructions of their patients’ brains after
electrode implants to better determine the location of
seizure onset, and to determine if surgery is a feasible
treatment option. Though my path didn’t turn out quite
like planned, I will always be grateful to the Litt Lab for
supporting me as I found my way at Penn.
AllISON PEARCE
BSE in CIS 2014
Email: alpearce@seas.upenn.edu
5/16/13 4:46 PM
PAGE 4
alumni news
N E W S F R O M P E N N ’ S A D VA N C I N G W O M E N I N E N G I N E E R I N G
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: HADAS KRESS-GAZIT
HADAS KRESS-GAZIT
Assistant Professor at Cornell
Dept: Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
PhD (Electrical Engineering), UPenn, ‘08
MS (Engineering), UPenn, ‘05
BSc (Department of Electrical Engineering),
Technion, ‘02
Website: http://verifiablerobotics.com/
Email: hadaskg@cornell.edu
Hadas Kress-Gazit is an alumna of SEAS’s GRASP
(General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and
Perception) Laboratory of Penn, where she was
awarded an MS and PhD in Electrical and Systems
Engineering under the direction of Professor George
Pappas, after completing her undergraduate degree in
Electrical Engineering at Israel’s Technion. After
graduating from Penn in the summer of 2008, she
joined Cornell’s Department of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering as an Assistant Professor, where
she co-directs the Autonomous Systems Lab.
Professor Kress-Gazit’s research addresses the creation
of high-level interactions with robots. By drawing on
techniques from hybrid systems, linguistics, control
theory, model checking, verification, motion planning,
test planning, and logic, her work studies how to
formalize high-level goals and automatically create
controllers for robotic systems so that correct
behavior is guaranteed. To illustrate, consider a robot
designed to clean a room. Kress-Gazit’s research
involves developing methods to automatically generate
code corresponding to the high-level behavior a user
specifies (using structured English and temporal logic),
such as instructing the robot to avoid liquids spills or
vacuum only specific objects, rather than have to
manually write code for every individual behavior.
Manually programming the robot may be particularly
inefficient because such code must be able to account
for every permutation of situations the robot could
conceivably encounter. Other challenges her group
addresses are to ensure that the autonomous behavior
is safe and guaranteed to work, to determine when it is
not possible to implement the desired behavior in the
first place, and ways of communicating feasiblity to the
user.
Her graduate research in robotics at Penn earned her
several important distinctions, including the Charles
Hallac and Sarah Keil Wolf Award, and Best Student
Paper Award Finalist recognition at two major
international robotics conferences. Kress-Gazit recalls
her time at Penn fondly, and believes many unique
aspects of SEAS, and the GRASP lab in particular,
contributed to her success. She praises the school’s
“noncompetitive” culture where student cooperation
prevails, which she believes distinguishes it from
programs housing other top robotics programs.
During her graduate school years, she also benefited
the emphasis on cross-disciplinary collaboration, which
enabled her to engage in work drawing on Penn’s
interdisciplinary strength, and work closely with faculty
from other departments, including Computer and
Information Science. Some of those collaborations
continue today – she still maintains contact with
professors like Rajeev Alur of Penn CIS, with whom she
collaborates as one of 18 PIs on a multi-institution,
$10 million dollar National Science Foundation ExCAPE
award project to make computer programming more
intuitive and less error-prone.
Professor Kress-Gazit recalls that at every stage in
her career beginning with her undergraduate studies,
women have been underrepresented in her academic
sphere – classmates and professors then, and
colleagues now. She is also puzzled that her Electrical
Engineering major does not enjoy the relatively balanced
gender composition of fields like Bioengineering, given
that they employ very similar methodologies. To
encourage the “critical mass” of women she believes is
necessary to sustain a healthy gender balance in
engineering and the physical sciences at the student
and faculty levels, Kress-Gazit has participated in
several initiatives at Cornell. She advises female
students at Cornell, and participates in luncheons with
female students and faculty in her department. She has
also mentored female high school students on week-long
summer research projects as part of a program at
Cornell, during which she introduced them to
programming through projects with iRobot Create - an
experience some found so enjoyable that they founded
robotics clubs upon their return to school. If she
could make one wish for current students, it would be
that they be exposed to more female role models in
academic engineering – for the sake of “both male and
female students,” she says, emphasizing, “diversity is
good for everyone!”
SHAUDI MAHDAVI
PhD in ESE, shaudi@seas.upenn.edu
122535 4
5/16/13 4:46 PM
PAGE 5
alumni news
N E W S F R O M P E N N ’ S A D VA N C I N G W O M E N I N E N G I N E E R I N G
AwE’S FIRST ALUMNI PANEL
Janelle was involved with the National Society of Black
Engineers and the Penn Band.
L to R: Panel coordinator, Hilary Grosskopf, Jeanine Gubler Heck, Janelle Johnson,
Sydney Kestle, Allison Rozsits, and panel coordinator, Sophia Stylianos.
On March 27, 2013, AWE hosted an Alumni Panel for
undergrads in Heilmeier Halel. Four female SEAS grads
returned to campus to give advice covering topics for
freshmen such as “What does it actually mean to be an
engineer?” to “How did Penn prepare you for your first
year in the ‘real world’?” or “How do you apply what
you learned at Penn to your specific job?” The panel
consisted of Jeanine Gubler Heck, CIS ’99, Janelle
Johnson, CBE ’08, Sydney Kestle, BE ’11, and Allison
Rozsits, BE ’12.
Jeanine is currently a Senior Director in the Technology
+ Product group at Comcast. She has been there for 6
years, and is responsible for product efforts related to
content discovery. In this role, Jeanine has led the
creation of a voice recognition capability that lets
customers control their TV through voice commands.
She has also launched a cloud-enabled TV search
engine, and built the company’s first TV
recommendations engine. At Penn, Jeanine was involved
with SWE and was also captain of the cheerleading
team. After graduating from Penn, Jeanine moved to
New York and worked at Gemini Systems, an IT
consulting company, providing solutions to financial
services organizations. After six years there, she
enrolled full-time at Columbia Business School,
receiving her MBA in 2007.
Janelle has been employed at Philadelphia Gas Works
since graduation. She originally worked in the
Chemical Services Department as a Chemist until to
2012. Currently, she works in Gas Processing
Department as a Senior Staff Engineer. She is also a
part-time graduate student at Villanova University
majoring in Water Resources and Environmental
Engineering and will graduate in May 2013. At Penn,
122535 5
Sydney returned to her hometown of Washington, D.C.,
and is currently a second year law student at American
University, Washington College of Law. After her first
year, she interned with Judge Jimmie V. Reyna of the
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. While at the
Fed Circuit, she had the opportunity to work on
patent specific cases, as well as cases brought under
the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. This summer,
Sydney will be a summer associate at the intellectual
property firm, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garret
& Dunner LLP, working with the mechanical practice
group. While at Penn, Sydney worked in a tissue
engineering and biomechanics lab, and was a member
of Chi Omega and SWE.
Allison has been working as a Product Development
Engineer Associate at DePuy Synthes (a Johnson &
Johnson company) in West Chester, PA. She is
currently in a rotational engineering program and has
been working in product development, but will be
moving to a manufacturing role in June, and will
continue on to other job functions across varying
geographical sites for the next 2 to 3 years. While at
Penn, she was a member of AOE engineering sorority,
Club Swimming, and BMES.
The panelists all offered a unique background and
perspective on the field of engineering. At the end of
the panel, each woman offered a take-away piece of
advice. Jeanine offered a piece of advice that Billy Joel
shared when he spoke to her class during her time at
Penn: follow your dreams. Even if you can’t achieve
them right away, know what your dreams are and make
sure you’re getting there! Janelle stressed the
importance of networking. In the professional sense,
be sure to always reach out to people for opportunities.
Additionally, as a professional engineer, she advised
everyone to support each other and reminded us that
we can’t do it on our own. Sydney wanted everyone to
remember that your job does not define you – be sure
to keep pursuing hobbies. Make sure you have an outlet
so you don’t get too caught up in your job. Allison told
the women in the audience to “make yourself; don’t find
yourself.” Be active, not passive in your professional
pursuits.
AWE hopes to continue this tradition and host an alumni
panel with SEAS alum from different engineering fields
annually!
5/16/13 4:46 PM
PAGE 6
faculty news
N E W S F R O M P E N N ’ S A D VA N C I N G W O M E N I N E N G I N E E R I N G
TwO MINUTES wITH KjK
KATHERINE j. KUCHENBECKER
Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Innovation
Dept: Mechanical and Applied Mechanics
KEVIN MONKO
PhD (Mechanical Engineering), Stanford, ‘06
MS (Mechanical Engineering), Stanford, ‘02
BSc (Mechanical Engineering), Stanford, ‘00
When AWE sat down with the Skirkanich Assistant
Professor of Innovation in Mechanical Engineering and
Applied Mechanics (MEAM), Katherine Kuchenbecker,
she had just been notified that she will be tenured and
promoted to Associate Professor in MEAM—which we
believe makes her complete official title Katherine
Julianne Kuchenbecker, Skirkanich Assistant
Professor of Innovation Mechanical Engineering and
Applied Mechanics, future Associate Professor, and
former Heartbreaker to the Stars. Read on to find out
why and so much more!
Where are you from? Los Angeles.
California or Philly? Philly, right now! That’s where I
live and I love it.
Favorite class you took in college? Vehicle Dynamics.
Chris Gerdes was the teacher. He’s a Penn alum –
Mechanical Engineering M&T.
Favorite part about teaching at Penn? The students.
Getting to stand on stage with a captive audience three
times a week, and they laugh at my jokes! At least
most of my jokes. They make me laugh, too.
Greatest research milestone? We invented a way to
add touch feedback to robotic surgery. This is a hard
problem that a lot of people have worked on, and we
came up with a very practical, simple, elegant, and
effective way to let you feel what the tools are touching
during surgery.
122535 6
Website: http://seas.upenn.edu/~kuchenbe
Email: kuchenbecker@seas.upenn.edu
Pool volleyball or beach volleyball? I’d have to pick
pool volleyball. I hate sand, and I like water. But for
watching? Beach volleyball. Kerri Walsh, in fact,
because she was my friend at Stanford. We were in
the same class. I also went to middle school and high
school with the future members of Maroon 5. Adam
Levine asked me out, and I said no. He was a seventh
grader and I was an eighth grader. He had chutzpah.
If you could pick a volleyball partner in SEAS who
would it be? For SEAS volleyball, I would team up
with Kendall Turner, a sophomore currently taking my
MEAM 211 course. She’s on Penn’s varsity volleyball
team, and I think we could take on anyone in SEAS in
doubles.
Who would win in a bicycle race, you or your husband,
Professor Fiene? Professor Fiene. I’m kind of a slow
poke on the bike. He always has to bike behind me so
he doesn’t leave me in the dust. But there are many
reasons for that. He regularly exercises, and I… do not.
And I have the same bicycle I’ve had since I was 16.
What are your retirement plans? Scuba diving in the
Caribbean. I like being with my family, too, so they’d
have to come visit.
SOPHIA STYLIANOS
BSE in MEAM 2013
Email: sstyl@seas.upenn.edu
5/16/13 4:46 PM
PAGE 7
awards & recognition
N E W S F R O M P E N N ’ S A D VA N C I N G W O M E N I N E N G I N E E R I N G
jAROS BAUM & BOLLES AwARD
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
GRADUATE RESEARCH FEllOWSHIP
The Jaros Baum & Bolles Award was established in
2008 by Letetia Tedori Callinan (MEAM 1983) and
is awarded to a Penn Engineering student who has
demonstrated a commitment to advancing women
in engineering (e.g., through mentoring or as a role
model). Since 2008, we have recognized many of our
amazing women student leaders who are all now doing
equally amazing things in their careers.
This year 8 Penn Engineering women, both alumnae and
current students, won the prestigious NSF Graduate
Research Fellowship. The program recognizes and
supports outstanding graduate students in NSFsupported science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics disciplines who are pursuing researchbased master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S.
Julie Williams, MSE (2009 winner, 2010 graduate) is
working at Schlumberger as a Wireline Field Engineer
and has just been transferred to her fourth location,
Equatorial Guinea.
Elizabeth Beattie (MEAM ‘13) will begin doctoral studies
this fall at Penn in mechanical engineering. She will
work with Dr. Vijay Kumar in the GRASP laboratory on
development of micro-bio-robotic systems.
Alexandra Malikova, ESE (2010) completed her Master’s
in June 2012, and now works at the MTA New York
City Transit with the Capital Planning and Budget
department where her focus is on helping to plan the
capital program.
Naomi Fitter (undergrad degree from University of
Cinncinati) is currently finishing her first year as a
MEAM PhD student here at Penn, working in the Penn
Haptics Lab with Dr. Katherine Kuchenbecker.
Samantha Wang, BE (2011) is a Product Design
Engineer at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, OH. She
is currently in the New Business Creation organization
developing new technologies for the Tide brand.
Preeya Khanna (BE ’12) is currently a first year grad
student in the UC Berkeley/UCSF joint Bioengineering
Ph.D program. She is currently in Dr. Jose Carmena’s
lab studying properties of neural oscillations and using
them in brian-machine-interface tasks.
Sheetal Rajagopal, CBE (2012) is an Associate with
PwC’s consulting practice in New York City. Her clients
have included a financial institution, pharmaceutical
company, and international development organization.
Mi Young (Michelle) Kwon (BE ‘13) is enrolling in the
Biomedical Graduate Studies program at Penn, and is
considering working in a lab at IDOM (the Institute of
Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism).
This year’s winner is equally as fabulous.
Gabriela Moreno-Cesar is a senior in
Digital Media Design and has been
an active member of the Women in
Computer Science student organization
over the past 4 years. Gaby has been
the treasurer, the representative at
faculty meetings, the President, and currently the senior
advisor. In addition, Gaby led the charge with fellow CIS
student Trisha Kothari to create the WICS Residential
Program, a new living and learning program for women
in computer science within the College House System at
Penn. Currently Gaby is finishing up her senior design
where she is building a special-interest social network
for WiCS groups in schools around the nation called
WiCS University. Gaby will be attending Carnegie Mellon
in the fall to get her master’s in Human-Computer
Interaction and will be interning at VMware as a User
Experience Engineer this summer.
Dominique Ingato (CBE, CHE, ‘12) is a first-year
graduate student studying chemical engineering at the
University of California, Irvine. Advised by Dr. Young Jik
Kwon, she is researching nanotheragnostic agents for
use in combined imaging and therapy.
Corinne Riggin (undergraduate degree from University
of Maryland) is a second year graduate student in
Bioengineering at Penn.
Laura Struzyna (undergraduate degree from Duke) is
starting her PhD in the Bioengineering here at Penn this
Fall and plans to research neural tissue engineering.
Ashleigh Thomas (EE, Math ‘13) is pursuing a PhD
in math at Duke where she plans to work on applied
algebraic topology.
Congratulations to all of the winners!
ABRAHAM RESEARCH AwARD
Given for the first time this year, the Abraham Research Award is intended to support a female
undergraduate student conducting research at SEAS for the summer. The first winner is Kinjal
Shah, a freshmen in Bioengineering who will work with Dr David Issadore, a new faculty member in
BE, looking at introducing microfluidics-based genetic analysis to point-of-care clinical applications.
122535 7
5/16/13 4:46 PM
PRESORTED
FIRST CLASS MAIL
US POSTAGE
PAID
PHILA, PA
PERMIT#2563
Advancing Women in Engineering
University of Pennsylvania
210 S. 33rd Street
109 Towne
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6321
Opt-Out Information
If you don’t wish to receive information about AWE,
you may opt out at www.alumni.upenn.edu/optout.
Update your address/email at
www.alumni.upenn.edu.
FElICE MACERA
support the future.
Consider giving to Advancing Women in
Engineering at www.seas.upenn.edu/giving.
three easy ways to stay in touch...
Find us on FB: facebook.com/groups/awealumni/
Find us on Twitter @pennawe
Find us on Blogspot: penn-awe.blogspot.com/
contribute to our newsletter!
Want more information about AWE or just have
questions about Penn Engineering?
Contact Michele Grab at mgrab@seas.upenn.edu
122535 8
advancing women in engineering
The AWE program is dedicated to recruiting, retaining,
and promoting women within Penn Engineering.
Our goals are to:
Develop and support initiatives to increase the number
of women interested in studying engineering at Penn and
elsewhere.
Enhance the overall academic experience of female students
in Penn Engineering via targeted curricular development and
increased research and professional opportunities.
Create and support social and networking opportunities for
women in engineering.
5/16/13 4:46 PM