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8 Incredible Women in Engineering

By: Tanzina Nowshin

Hi, my name is Tanzina Nowshin and I’m a recent Mechanical Engineering graduate from Ryerson University, and I’m here to tell you about 8 amazing women in engineering across three levels.

Let’s start on an international scale with…

Dahun Mamora: She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and a master’s degree in Engineering Management. She is currently a Technical Project Manager on the Power Electronics Team at TESLA. Dahun also launched a platform called Beyond Our Limitations to help provide mentorship and financial support to international students in the US. Her goal is to use the platform to share her story, and also build a community of international students and remind them that they can achieve great things in life if they look beyond their limitations! 

Audrey Tang: Audrey wrote her first computer game at just 8 years old to help her brother learn fractions. She began learning Perl at age 12, dropped out of high school, left Taiwan and by age 19 she was hailed as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. In 2016, Audrey also became Taiwan’s youngest government minister as well as Taiwan’s first transgender Cabinet member. 

Anushree Sonic: She is an alumna of Ryerson University and International Space University where she got her Bachelor’s in Aerospace Engineering and Master’s in Space Science respectively. Anushree began her career at the NASA Ames Research Center where she supported on-orbit operations of various payloads on the International Space Station. She left NASA Ames in 2020 to pursue a career working for Waymo, formerly known as Google’s self-driving car project. There she is currently managing and leading a team working on the development of the self-driving system.

Next, let’s move on to a national scale starting with…

Natasha Walji – Natasha is a Director at Google Canada leading the Tech, Telecom & Public sector business. She has been at Google for 10 years and was previously a McKinsey consultant and a software developer. She has been serving the community for around 20 years in the areas of disaster relief, poverty alleviation, public health and also founded an organization for children with disabilities. Natasha has also been named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by WXN

Professor Noreen Komal – She has a Bachelor of Science and a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering as well as a Ph.D. in human-computer interaction. She collaborated on a COVID-19 project with the Nova Scotia Health Authority that applies engineering techniques to healthcare modelling. When I was reading her article, I really liked one of her quotes where she said: “As an interdisciplinary researcher, I am always promoting engineers within healthcare… I hope that we can see more engineers working within the health system working alongside epidemiologists, physicians, and administrators to develop solutions to create one of the best top-performing health systems that is agile enough to respond to situations such as this pandemic.”

Deanna Burgart – Deanna is Cree/Dene from Fond du Lac First Nation. She is an engineer and a Senior Instructor in the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary. Deanna also serves as the President of IndigeSTEAM, whose mission is the provision of Indigenous-led and culturally relevant programming to support better futures for Indigenous youth in STEM.

When I was reading more about what IndigeSTEAM does, I really liked how they defined the term STEAM. So, as we all know STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. But, when we talk about the connections to social enterprise, humanities, arts, innovation, entrepreneurship and more, we put an ‘A’ into STEM to get STEAM. The A can represent Arts, Architecture and Agriculture – all areas that Indigenous peoples have been innovators in for thousands of years.

Now on a local level, we have…

Minakshi Suri – Minakshi has a civil engineering degree and she is currently working in the higher education industry as an Engineering Outreach Coordinator for our very own, Ryerson University. Her work involves delivering several outreach programs designed to inform, educate and excite students from Kindergarten to Grade 12 about engineering as a field of study or profession. I personally think the kind of work that Minakshi is doing is critical for our future since it is essentially shaping and inspiring young minds to pursue a career in STEM, motivating the next generation of changemakers.

Now last but definitely not least, 

Vanessa Raponi – Vanessa is a Product Development Engineer-in-Training at Spin Master, a Canadian-founded international toy company. She designs and creates toys and balances her technical expertise with her leadership and project management skills and leads the Sustainable Materials committee. Vanessa is also the founder of EngiQueers Canada, a national non-profit that advocates for intersectional queer inclusion in the engineering profession.

And that is all I have for you today! These women were only a few of the hundreds out there in the workforce who are not only challenging barriers but making revolutionary waves within their respective industries. For all the women out there currently pursuing their degree, I encourage you to look into mentorship programs, extracurriculars or events such as WIE (women in engineering), or even follow inspiring female leaders on platforms such as LinkedIn.

For all those that do not identify as a woman, I encourage you to look into what it means to be an ally and how to support fellow female peers.

Thank you for listening!

**As of April 2022, Ryerson University has been renamed Toronto Metropolitan University**

References

8 Influential LGBTQ+ People in STEM to Celebrate This Pride Month

Natasha Walji recognized as one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women in WXN’s Top 100 to Celebrate and Inspire Female Leaders

INWED 2020: Noreen Kamal, PhD, P.Eng.

IndigeSTEAM

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