International Women in Engineering Day: 35 highly influential women in engineering

To celebrate International Women in Engineering Day  AcademicInfluence.com has spotlighted 35 women who are making their impact felt in every area of the engineering field.

The influencers featured include groundbreaking roboticists, founders of high-tech companies and medical experts. They are CEOs, professors, and astronauts, working to improve our world, from building nanostructures to forging pathways to the stars. These women steer the course of engineering toward far-reaching and exciting horizons. They are at the top of the engineering field today, as leaders and innovators; transforming the profession and inspiring future engineering students.

INNOVATIVE & BOLD THINKERS

“Engineering has a reputation as a mostly male profession. We want to set the record straight and let more people know that women engineers are not only growing in number; but also are driving the field forward in new and creative ways. They bring innovative thinking and bold solutions that make their profession better; and more people need to know who they are and see why they are the vanguard of a new era in engineering,” stated Dr Jed Macosko, Academic Director of AcademicInfluence.com and Professor of Physics at Wake Forest University.

On this International Women in Engineering Day, “we wanted to point the next generation to the leaders and mentors they need to seek out; the role models they can emulate; and the women whose foundational work they may one day build upon,” added Macosko. “Our goal is to raise awareness of those leaders in engineering who rightly deserve attention; and who can serve as guides to young people as they aspire to their own meaningful contributions within the engineering profession.”

INFLUENTIAL WOMEN IN ENGINEERING

So who are this year’s highly influential women leaders in the engineering field? This year’s list include:

• Adah Almutairi: Scholar, inventor and entrepreneur. Also Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry; affiliate faculty in the departments of Bioengineering and NanoEngineering; and Director of the Center for Excellence in Nanomedicine and Engineering in the Institute of Engineering in Medicine at the University of California, San Diego .

• Rose Amal: Scientia Professor and ARC Laureate Fellow and Director of the Particles and Catalysis Research Group in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of New South Wales. 

• Anousheh Ansari: the first Iranian and first female Muslim in space. The Iranian American engineer is Co-founder and Chairwoman of Prodea Systems. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as Co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies. 

• Kristi Anseth: Tisone Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering; an Associate Professor of Surgery; and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

• Frances Arnold: Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering; and Biochemistry for the California Institute of Technology. 

• Wanda Austin: Former President and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation; a leading architect for the nation’s national security space programmes. She was both the first woman, and the first African-American, to hold this position.

• Ruzena Bajcsy: American engineer and computer scientist who specialises in robotics. She is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is also Director Emerita of CITRIS .

• Gilda A Barabino: President of the Olin College of Engineering, where she is also a Professor of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering. 

• Dawn Bonfield: Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor of Inclusive Engineering at Aston University; and Director of Engineering Equality Diversity and Inclusion at Aston University. Bonfield is also the past President and Chief Executive of the Women’s Engineering Society.

• Ursula Burns: American businesswoman who was the Chair and CEO of VEON from late 2018 to early 2020, a senior advisor to Teneo; and a Non-xecutive Director of Diageo since April 2018. She is a member of the board of directors of Uber. In 2009, Burns became CEO of Xerox, the first among Black women to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company; and the first woman to succeed another as head of a Fortune 500 company. Burns served as CEO of Xerox from 2009 to 2016 and Xerox chairwoman from 2010 to 2017.

• M Elizabeth Cannon: Canadian engineer specialising in geomatics engineering and President Emerita of the University of Calgary. 

• Marita Cheng: Founder of Robogals  was named the 2012 Young Australian of the Year. She is the founder and current CEO of Aubot, a start-up robotics company. Cheng also co-founded Aipoly, an app to assist blind people to recognise objects using their mobile phones. She was named as one of the World’s Top 50 women in Technology by Forbes in 2018; and recognised on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2016.

• Leslie Dewan: The American nuclear engineer  was the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Transatomic Power. Dr Dewan is a member of the board of MIT. She was also named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

• Ann Dowling: Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Cambridge.

• Mica Endsley: Engineer and a former Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force. 

• Lynn Gladden: Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering for the University of Cambridge; as well as Executive Chair at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. 

• Diane Greene: American technology entrepreneur and executive. She started her career as a naval architect before transitioning to the tech industry; where she was a founder and the CEO of VMware from 1998 until 2008. Greene later served on the board of Alphabet and as the CEO of Google Cloud from 2015 until early 2019. She also co-founded and was CEO of two startups, Bebop and VXtreme, which were acquired by Google and Microsoft, respectively.

• Helen Greiner: Co-founder of iRobot and former CTO of Aria Insights, a start-up company specialising in small multi-rotor drones for the consumer, commercial and military markets.

• Mae Carol Jemison: American engineer, physician and former NASA astronaut. She became the first Black woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. 

• Dina Katabi: The Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT; and the Director of the MIT Wireless Center.

• Lydia Kavraki: Greek-American computer scientist; the Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science, a professor of bioengineering, electrical and computer engineering and mechanical engineering at Rice University. She is also the Director of the Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice University. She is known for her work on robotics/AI and bioinformatics/computational biology.

• Barbara Liskov: Computer scientist at MIT, where she is Ford Professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Institute Professor in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), where she leads the Programming Methodology Group. She was also one of the first women in the US to earn a PhD in computer science. 

• Sandra Magnus: American engineer and a former NASA astronaut. She returned to Earth with the crew of STS-119 Discovery on 28 March 2009; after having spent 134 days in orbit. 

• Radhika Nagpal: American computer scientist and researcher in the fields of self-organising computer systems, biologically-inspired robotics, and biological multi-agent systems. She is the Fred Kavli Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University and the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She is also a Core Faculty Member of the Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. In 2017, Nagpal co-founded a robotics company, Root Robotics.

• Dava Newman: Former Deputy Administrator of NASA. Newman is the Apollo Program Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and a Harvard–MIT Health, Sciences, and Technology faculty member in Cambridge, MA. 

• Barbara Ann Oakley: American Professor of Engineering at Oakland University and McMaster University whose online courses on learning are some of the most popular MOOC classes in the world. 

• Arati Prabhakar: American engineer and the former head of DARPA, the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. 

• Daniela L Rus: Romanian-American roboticist, the Director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; and Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• Lisa Su: Taiwanese-born American business executive and electrical engineer, who is the CEO and President of Advanced Micro Devices. She is known for her work developing silicon-on-insulator semiconductor manufacturing technologies and more efficient semiconductor chips during her time as Vice President of IBM’s Semiconductor Research and Development Center.

• Tessy Thomas: Indian scientist and Director General of Aeronautical Systems; and the former Project Director for Agni-IV missile in Defence Research and Development Organisation. She is the first woman scientist to head a missile project in India.

• Manuela M Veloso: Herbert A Simon University Professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Veloso also holds the title of Head of AI Research at J.P. Morgan Bank.

• Padmasree Warrior: Founder, CEO and President of Fable Group Inc, a curated reading platform focused on mental wellness. She also serves on the board of directors of Microsoft and Spotify.

• Jennifer Widom: Frederick Emmons Terman Dean of the Stanford School of Engineering and the Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science; and Professor in the Stanford Department of Electrical Engineering. 

• Stephanie Wilson: American engineer and a NASA astronaut. She flew to space onboard three Space Shuttle missions; and is the second African American woman to go into space, after Mae Jemison. Her 42 days in space are the most of any African American astronaut, male or female.

• Jackie Yi-Ru Ying: American nanotechnology scientist and the founding Executive Director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore.

Click here to read more about the accomplishments of these amazing women and their influence on engineering worldwide. A recent study found that gender-based bias in engineering is a huge problem. Click here to read more.