Women you should know; paid internships; what to do after graduating video
Women you should know; paid internships; what to do after graduating video
WiE Newsletter - December 2020 - ISSUE 14
Dr. Rachelle Heller

Front and Center 

News from the Director

The turkey, however small this year, is long gone, and we remain eager for a time when we go back to living in ‘precedented’ times. But, these times have pushed our creativity and ability to reach each other and to consider new opportunities and address new policies and community. The Advisory Boards for the WiE Center met earlier this term. One area of focus in our discussions was how to make clear that the Center is here as a stronghold of inclusion and diversity as a whole, and not only to support female engineers. We aim to continue embracing this mission, and welcome any suggestions and ideas on how best to promote it to GW students, faculty, staff and alumni.

As students prepare for finals and then metaphorically head for home, mentoring relationships established through the Center are continuing. A new cohort of mentors and mentees will be formed in the first weeks of the Spring term. We are eager to expand our mentoring teams, and several mentors are awaiting matchups with mentees, ideally in disciplines of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Systems Engineering. Apply to mentor or be mentored at this link.

Students are also looking ahead to Summer internships and after-graduation jobs or futher studies. We asked six recent graduates from across the SEAS disciplines to share their experiences in trying to decide what to do after graduation, especially as they searched during the early days of the COVID pandemic. The hour-long webinar was outstanding (view it here). Spoiler alert – among other things, the women stressed 1) Don’t stress! It's OK to take your time, there is no deadline; 2) Think about what your passion is and follow that; and 3) Use your network!
We'll be back with the next WiE newsletter in January 2021. Wishing you all a safe and relaxing Holiday Season - remember to stay physically distant and socially connected, and wash your hands. 

Shelly Heller
WiE Center Director

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GWIC Cookie Contest: Winning Cookie Baked Live - Friday, December 4 - 3:00-5:00 pm ET

Watch live as Chief Evangelist and GWIC founder Annamaria Konya Tannon bakes the winning cookie recipe. 

Women You Should Know 

Prof. Lijie Grace Zhang
Prof. Lijie Grace Zhang
Lijie Grace Zhang has been appointed Associate Dean for Research in SEAS. Professor Zhang's Bioengineering Laboratory for Nanomedicine and Tissue Engineering applies a range of interdisciplinary technologies and approaches in additive manufacturing, nanotechnology, stem cells, tissue engineering, and drug delivery for various biomedical applications.
The main ongoing research projects include: integrating 3D/4D bioprinting and nanotechnology for complex cardiovascular, neural and musculoskeletal tissue regenerations; investigation of the influence of nano and chemical environments in directing stem cell differentiations for regenerative medicine; developing sustained drug formulations for long term and controlled drug release at disease or cancer sites; and developing novel 3D/4D tunable tissue models for cancer metastasis study and therapeutic discovery.  

Dr. Lorena Barba (MAE)
Dr. Lorena Barba
Dr. Lorena Barba (MAE) was an invited speaker at SC20: The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis. SC is the premier (and largest) conference focused on high performance computing, with more than 13,000 attendees and a broad and compelling program that uniquely blends research and innovation with the state of practice and workforce education. It is jointly organized by the IEEE Computer Society and the Association for Computing Machinery, ACM. Dr. Barba was one of 11 invited speakers at SC20, representing the breadth, depth, and future outlook of technology and its societal and scientific impact.
Saniya LeBlanc
Saniya LeBlanc
Saniya LeBlanc. Global & Experiential Education (G&EE) within the GW School of Business (GWSB) has partnered with Dr. Saniya LeBlanc (MAE) and Dr. Anna Helm (GWSB) to offer a new 3-credit course for the Spring 2021 term. The Global Business Project: International Business of Sustainable Energy course will bring together students from multiple disciplines to learn about energy technologies, international business, and global energy perspectives. Students will compare and contrast the energy perspectives of two countries, the United States and Sweden.
After learning core energy and business topics, interdisciplinary teams of students will partner with real clients in Sweden to complete energy sector consulting projects. Students will work in teams to research new market opportunities for the firm's technology and propose their recommendations upon conclusion of the course. The course is open to undergraduate and graduate students within SEAS and GWSB. Students with a minor in sustainability are also encouraged to apply.

Pathways to Science

Paid Summer Research Programs and Fully Funded STEM Graduate Programs

No time like the present to work on applications for the Summer! 
PathwaysToScience.org is an excellent resource for finding both paid Summer research programs and fully funded STEM graduate programs.
Use the website to search:
  • 630 paid summer research programs for undergrads and grad students, including opportunities funded by NSF, NASA, NOAA, etc.
  • 138 fully funded STEM masters programs
  • 160 fully funded STEM PhD programs
For help finding programs, view this quick video tutorial on how to use the advanced search page.
Good luck!
image of newspaper

What We Are Reading


Maybe because I have been missing seeing family, I have been trolling the internet for stories about women in engineering that I could share with my family and spark some discussion. My favorite is an article from Marina Koren’s October 12 issue of The Atlantic on how NASA has solved the problem of bathroom hygiene for women in space. Trust me, it got my family’s attention and I am sure you will find the entire analysis very interesting. Diversity, thy name is space travel!

And, of course I am reading our own Center resource page! Check it out at https://womenengineers.seas.gwu.edu/wie-resources.  As the Center continues to address our role in addressing diversity and inclusion in SEAS, we have added three new white papers – on the impact of COVID on faculty, on ideas for addressing inclusion in our curriculum, and the start of an extensive bibliography related to diversity and inclusion in engineering.

Happy reading!

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