2020-2021 WOMEN'S PERSPECTIVES SEMINAR

finding opportunity in uncertainty​​

​Speaker Line-up

Winter Quarter
Remote | 4:30 - 5:20pm | Thursdays
All are invited to attend!
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Jan 14
PAOLA MORENO-ROMAN

Director, Strategic Partnerships, Foldscope Instruments
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Paola was born and raised in Lima, Peru. She majored in Biology at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (Peru). Afterwards, Paola moved to the U.S. and obtained her doctoral degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology at Stanford University. Currently, Paola is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at Foldscope Instruments, Inc. Her multiple identities -woman, Latina, native, immigrant, Catholic, feminist, scientist- give rise to her core vision that science is a potent vehicle to promote the inclusiveness and empowerment of individuals from all walks of life. As a Stanford graduate student, besides doing scientific research, Paola worked to use the universality of science as a means to connect individuals from diverse backgrounds. Her personal circumstances led her to place a high value on mentorship and its crucial role in diversity and inclusion initiatives. This conviction led Paola to be involved in a wide variety of science outreach initiatives in both the U.S. and in Peru.

Jan 21
Santhi Analytis

VP Engineering, Treau​
Santhi Analytis is currently Head of Engineering at Treau, Inc., an HVAC startup in San Francisco, building an environmentally friendly heat pump. Prior to that, she was CTO and co-founder of Moxxly, Inc., designing smart breast pumps for modern moms. After the acquisition of Moxxly, she shifted her focus from making medical devices to technologies that mitigate climate change. Her background includes research in fiber optic sensors, medical imaging, robotics, haptics, and design methodology, and her industry experience includes developing a percutaneous heart valve system, and evaluating localization sensors for a robotic catheter system. For fun, Santhi has made brain-wave controlled interactive art installations, and enjoys tinkering when she can find the time. Santhi holds a PhD and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, and a BS in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Latin American Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Jan 28
katherine (KAt) Steele

Associate Professor, University of Washington​
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Kat M. Steele is the Albert S. Kobayashi Endowed Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington. She leads the Ability & Innovation Lab, which integrates engineering, rehabilitation medicine, and disability studies to examine how we explore and interact with our world (steelelab.me.uw.edu). She loves to explore her world – these days around her neighborhood and local parks – with her husband, two little boys, and labrador retriever Oak. She earned her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and is an alumni of the ME Women Seminar Series. To integrate engineering and medicine, she has worked in multiple hospitals including the Denver Children’s Hospital, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. She has been awarded a Career Development Award in Rehabilitation Engineering from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation CAREER Early Faculty Development Award, and the American Society of Biomechanics Young Scientist Award. In 2020, she co-founded and serves as Associate Director of CREATE (create.uw.edu), the Center for Research & Education on Accessible Technology & Experiences with partners from industry and academia in engineering, rehabilitation medicine, disability studies and information sciences supported by an inaugural $2.5 million investment from Microsoft. She is also the co-founder of AccessEngineering (uw.edu/doit/accessing), program that supports individuals with disabilities to pursue careers in engineering and trains all engineers in principles of universal design and ability-based design to create more inclusive products, environments, and experiences.

feb 4
Shirley Sandoz

First Female Mechanical Engineering PhD at Stanford University​
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​​Shirley Sandoz grew up on a farm in central Oregon. After receiving a BS in Engineering at Harvey Mudd College, she entered Stanford where she was the first woman to be awarded a PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 1973.

She joined General Electric’s Nuclear Energy Division in 1971 and worked on reactor design and safety analysis for 12 years, advancing to a management position.  In 1984 she moved to Lockheed Missiles and Space Company in Austin Texas where she was program manager on a US Navy contract that supplied meteorological and oceanographic computer and sensor systems for Navy ships.

In 1994 she transferred to Lockheed Idaho as Director of Alternative Energy and Natural Resource Products at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.  Her final job with Lockheed was directing Systems Engineering for ground operations for the Space Shuttle in Houston, TX. 
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Shirley retired in 2002 and has remodeled a house, managed real estate investments, written and published two books and taught quilting classes.  She is active in several organizations that contribute to her local community. She loves to travel and document her trips with photo/video slide shows.

Feb 11
Sheri sheppard and portia Carryer

Mother - Daughter Duo, Education Enthusiasts
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 A Librarian and an Engineer---more in common than you might expect!

The Librarian: Portia Carryer is a Bay Area educator who currently works as a Teen Librarian at San Leandro Public Library, where she focuses on using socio-emotional learning as a lever for equity. She taught 9th grade English/Ethnic Studies at Oakland Tech for four years, wrote poetry in Canada for two years, and dreamed of becoming a pastry chef for most of high school. She holds degrees in history, education, library science, and poetry, and considers herself a life-long learner.


The Engineer: Sheri Sheppard has been on the faculty in mechanical engineering at Stanford for over 34 years. Besides teaching design and structural-analysis related courses, she researches questions on the education of engineers (and why engineering is not more diverse).
Before coming to Stanford, Sheri worked in the automotive industry in Detroit. In her spare time, she likes to do yoga, travel & camp in an RV, design stuff, and hang out with her husband and daughter (and her daughter's partner).

Feb 18
Megan (dustin) Mahajan

Manager of Energy Policy Design, Energy Innovation: Policy & Technology LLC
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Megan Mahajan is a Manager of Energy Policy Design at Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology LLC, focused on the firm’s Energy Policy Solutions program. Megan helps lead work on Energy Innovation’s in-house climate and energy policy model, the Energy Policy Simulator, and has helped develop versions of the model for the United States, China, and India, among other regions. As part of this role, she helps policymakers and advocates determine which policies can most effectively meet climate and energy goals across the world. Megan’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, and the United States House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis Majority Staff Report. Before transitioning into policy, Megan's work focused on environmental contaminants, including her previous role helping prepare expert witness reports for environmental litigation. Megan earned a M.S. in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University and a B.S. in Environmental Geosciences from the University of Notre Dame.

Feb 25
Melissa Regan

Film Maker
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Melissa is a Sundance award-winning filmmaker, experience / product designer, entrepreneur, and mechanical engineer.
 
Melissa's film work has appeared on HBO, PBS, MTV and Oprah. NO DUMB QUESTIONS (NoDumbQuestions.com), a funny and touching film about 6, 9 and 11 year old sisters whose Uncle Bill is becoming their new Aunt Barbara, is helping families, schools, colleges and workplaces spark open conversations about transgender allyship. Melissa and her team are now finishing a feature documentary film about the NUNS ON THE BUS (NunsOnTheBusMovie.com) -- rebel nuns fighting to save our democracy.

Melissa has produced award-winning films for nonprofit, corporate and political clients, designed award-winning educational software, co-founded an early Internet software company, taught math, science and engineering, and published research on innovative uses of technology for learning. She has a masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

mar 4
​lizmarie (Liz) comenencia ortiz

Sr NPI Manufacturing Engineer, Intuitive Surgical
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Lizmarie (Liz) Comenencia Ortiz is a Sr New Product Introduction (NPI) Manufacturing Engineer at Intuitive Surgical working on developing the next generation surgical instruments. She is motivated by projects that have the potential to make healthcare more accessible by reducing cost and time of treatment and recovery. Liz received the B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering and in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2013, during the summers she had the opportunity to do research at NASA JPL and Goddard Spaceflight Center. These experiences were instrumental to her formation as an engineer, and shaped her interests by learning first-hand about the impact of engineering in society. After college, she received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 2015 and 2018 with support from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and the Stanford EDGE Doctoral Fellowship. Her doctoral research focused on micro-scale MEMS timing references and inertial sensors and contributed to her interests in smart medical devices and sensors. In her spare time, Liz likes to travel, design jewelry and work on DIY projects.

Mar 11
Michelle johnson

Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania
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Michelle J. Johnson, Ph.D., is currently a tenured Associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Pennsylvania.  She has a secondary appointment as an Associate professor in Bioengineering and is a member of the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics graduate group. She has a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, with an emphasis in mechatronics, robotics, and design, from Stanford University.  She completed a NSF-NATO post-doctoral fellowship at the Advanced Robotics Technology and Systems Laboratory at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Italy. She directs the Rehabilitation Robotic Research and Design Laboratory located at the Pennsylvania Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine. The lab is also affiliated with the General Robotics Automated Sensing Perception (GRASP) Lab.  Dr. Johnson’s lab specializes in the design, development, and therapeutic use of novel, affordable, intelligent robotic assistants for rehabilitation in high and low-resource environments with an emphasis on using robotics and sensors to quantify upper limb motor function in adults and children with brain injury or at risk for brain injury.  

Mar 18
miriam goodman

Professor, Stanford University​
Miriam B. Goodman is a Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology and has been a member of the faculty at Stanford University since 2002. Currently, she also serves as a deputy director of the Stanford Neuroscience Institute (SNI) and directs the SNI's Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Scholars program. Her lab is a collection of people with diverse training and a shared interest in understanding how sensation works.
Her first exposure to scientific research was as a high school student in Bethesda, MD, when she wrote software to analyze early databases of protein structure and build GUI for a compartmental modelling simulation suite in the Laboratory of Mathematical Biology at the National Cancer Institute, which was headed by Dr. Mones Berman. After obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry at Brown University, she returned to the NIH to extend her research knowledge to neuroscience. At NIH, she analyzed intracellular calcium dynamics in secretory cells in the Laboratory of Neurophysiology with Dr. Jefferey L. Barker. Her disseration research with Dr. Jonathan J. Art at The University of Chicago concerned the ion channels required for hearing. She started to work with the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a postdoc first with Shawn Lockery at the University of Oregon and later with Martin Chalfie at Columbia University.
Her research and scientific accomplishments have recognized by the Eppendorf and Science Magazine Prize in Neurobiology in 2004 and the Michael and Kate Bárány Young Investigator Award of the Biophysical Society in 2014.