2022-2023 WOMEN'S PERSPECTIVES SEMINAR

Recipe for growth
​Speaker Line-up

ENGR311A
​Winter Quarter
In-Person | 4:30 - 5:20pm | Thursdays
​

Jan 12
Dr. VANESSA SANCHEZ

Post-Doctoral Scholar, Bao Group at Stanford University
Vanessa is a fashion-designer-turned-engineer working to make our clothing smarter and more assistive through focusing on the intersection of materials, manufacturing, and robotics. She currently conducts research on supramolecular shape memory polymer fibers as an NSF MPS-Ascend Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Stanford Chemical Engineering. She attended the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) for fashion design and later graduated with a BS from the Fiber Science program at Cornell University, after which she obtained her MS and PhD at Harvard University in Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering on soft robotic textiles. Her seminar will detail her path from fashion to science and engineering, including the catalyst for this transition and her growth as a researcher—and person—along the way. In her free time, she likes creating (including making ceramics, food, furniture, and paintings), playing bass guitar, thrifting, styling outfits and rooms, hanging out with her cat, and dancing.

Jan 19
Dr. Cheryl lam

Sandia National Laboratories and Stanford PhD
Cheryl Lam received both her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. She also received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford, where she completed her doctoral research, advised by Professor Mark Cappelli, in hybrid fluid and particle based models for plasma transport in electric space propulsion (Hall thruster) applications. Since joining Sandia National Laboratories in 2002, Dr. Lam has held a diverse range of R&D and engineering roles, including systems engineering and various modeling, simulation, and analysis roles in support of varied national security applications. She is currently the R&D manager for the ModSim of Engineering Applications department at Sandia Livermore, which encompasses mechanical and thermal computational simulation and analysis for high consequence applications. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, eating, and lounging on Hawaiian beaches.

Jan 26
Prof. leora dresselhaus-marais

Assistant Professor of ME, Stanford​
Leora is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering, with a courtesy appointment in Mechanical Engineering, and a term appointment in Photon Science at the SLAC National Accelerator Lab. Leora was also appointed as a Precourt Center Fellow and a Gabilan Fellow at Stanford University, and was selected for a Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) Award from the AFOSR in 2022. Before coming to Stanford, Leora was a Lawrence Fellow in the Physics Division of the Physics and Life Sciences Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, where she developed the tools to study time-resolved defect dynamics in bulk materials -- giving new insights into long-standing problems in materials science. Leora did her PhD in Physical Chemistry with Prof. Keith Nelson at MIT, where she demonstrated how shock waves initiate chemistry in RDX that couples to deformations in unique ways that enhance the sensitivity. Leora did her BA and MSc in Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.

FEB 2
Seow lim

Head of Product Management, NVIDIA and Stanford MS
Seow Yin Lim is the Senior Director of Product Management at NVIDIA, a world leader in Artificial Intelligence Computing. Lim enjoys growing businesses from zero to billions of dollars. She has done it multiple times in her career growing market share, revenue and teams of different scale significantly with highly differentiated products, for large corporations including NVIDIA, Broadcom, Cadence, and others. The products she has managed span consumer, enterprise, hardware and software. Her strengths are product strategy, product definition, user research, team building, spanning vast market segments and applications. Over the years, she continues to develop her skills in the art and science of product management. She was a founder of a startup but didn't succeed - Povi.me helps parent and child establish a daily habit of thoughtful conversation that in turn helps children develop their social emotional skills. She is also a founding Board Member of Stemboost.org, where she focuses on mentoring young adults with the aspiration to have successful careers in STEM to develop their interests, skills and talents through middle school, high school and college. Lim received her BS in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Imperial College of London and her MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. She grew up in Malaysia. She is a mom of 2 boys, often challenged with balancing family and career but she enjoys both!

Feb 9
Prof. sindy Tang

Assistant Professor of ME, Stanford
Prof. Sindy KY Tang is the Kenneth and Barbara Oshman Faculty Scholar and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and by courtesy of Radiology (Precision Health and Integrated Diagnostics) at Stanford University. Sindy grew up in Hong Kong before she moved to the US for her undergraduate studies at Caltech. She went on to her MS studies at Stanford, followed by a PhD from Harvard. Sindy directs the micro-nano-bio lab at Stanford, which aims to design and fabricate innovative micro and nanoscale devices to understand the blueprint of biological systems and address gaps in precision medicine for a future with better health and environmental sustainability. Sindy is a mother to a pandemic baby boy, and enjoys playing with her son, cooking, hiking, skiing, and kickboxing.

Feb 16
Dr. krista donaldson

Founder and CEO, Equalize Health and Stanford PhD
Dr. Krista Donaldson is an engineer, designer, author, and entrepreneur who has been recognized as a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, TED speaker, and a GLG Social Impact Fellow. She was also named one of Fast Company’s “50 Designers Shaping the Future.”As founder and CEO of Equalize Health (formerly D-Rev), Dr. Donaldson addressed global health inequities through the design and scaling of disruptive medical devices that treated over 1.8M patients in 80 countries. Prior to Equalize Health, Krista was an Economic Officer at the U.S. Department of State where she managed part of Iraq’s reconstruction portfolio. She also co-founded the startup Safehub (acquired by Bitium), and worked at KickStart International (Kenya) and the design firm IDEO (USA). Krista holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, master’s degrees in Product Design and Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, also from Stanford. She has published widely in design, global health, mechanical engineering, and engineering education, and is on the boards of the Bay Area Global Health Alliance and Design for Good. Originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, she now lives with her family in San Francisco, USA.

Feb 23
dr. melinda lear

Staff System Engineer, Johnson & Johnson and Stanford PhD
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Melinda's professional passion is technology transfer for patient impact, working on every stage of the product lifecycle in medical devices. In her PhD at Stanford, she worked on translational research, prototyping and testing a microendoscopy system to study the microscopic force-generating elements of skeletal muscle to guide and evaluate treatments for musculoskeletal diseases. A passion for restoring skeletal muscle in injury and disease led her to a postdoc in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine at the VA Hospital and Stanford School of Medicine. She next joined a wearable robotics startup and led a prototyping project helping kids at different stages of muscular dystrophy progression. Her current role is at Auris Health, an Ethicon/Johnson and Johnson company. This role included developing and testing robotic technologies for kidney stone treatment and bronchoscopy which are now in use in patients. Currently she is leading the design for scalability effort as the lead system engineer on the robotic bronchoscopy system Monarch. During her time at Stanford, Melinda enjoyed the "new" Arillaga pool, hiking the dish, biking in the hills, catching old films featuring the Wurlitzer organ at the Stanford theater. You are still likely to see her around the Bing theater or the Stanford Jazz concerts. Outside the office, Melinda enjoys live music, hiking, camping and gardening with her spouse and their dog. Melinda holds 3 degrees in Mechanical Engineering, BS from UC Davis, MSME from MIT, and PhD from Stanford.

MAR 2
prof. jinny rhee

Dean of Engineering, California State University, Long Beach and Stanford PhD
Dr. Jinny Rhee joined the CSULB College of Engineering as Dean in July 2021, bringing to The Beach years of experience developing innovative student success and faculty-development programs and forging strong relationships with industry leaders, alumni, and community partners. Dr. Rhee comes to CSULB from San Jose State University, where, as Associate Dean of the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering, she led programs that raised graduation rates, increased faculty and student diversity, improved academic advising, and pioneered staff and faculty workshops on anti-racism and microaggressions. As Associate Dean, Dr. Rhee led college-wide initiatives and assisted with strategic planning and fostering a positive, inclusive, and collaborative college culture. Dr. Rhee administered the $1.8 million Silicon Valley Engineering Scholarship program, and was involved in over $9.2 million in philanthropy to the SJSU College of Engineering and its affiliated programs, engaging corporate, alumni, and community partners. She developed Engineering Programs in Community Service (EPICS @SJSU) to attract underrepresented minorities and women to engineering and tech and helped initiate the Industrial Technology Network Security Apprenticeship Program with Cisco Systems.

Mar 9
dr. kate stephenson

Founding Principal, Dyad Engineering and Stanford PhD
Dr. Stephenson is a Stanford Engineering PhD with a deep technical consulting background in new product ventures and manufacturing. She has a twenty-year history of strategic early-stage technical projects in a range of industries, including medical device, drug delivery, advanced manufacturing, telecomm and aerospace. A long-term resident of California’s Silicon Valley, her active network spans the start-up community, including R1 academic centers, incubators, investors, and startups. She is a speaker, author, industry event facilitator and mentor who believes passionately in connecting and educating diverse groups of people to address the complex "wicked" problems in our world. A "maker" in both her professional and personal life, she spends her off hours training her teenagers in tool use in her garage, creating and playing elaborate table top strategy games and nerding out over manufacturing equipment at trade shows. ​

Mar 16
prof. saniya leblanc

Associate Professor at GWU and Stanford PhD
Saniya LeBlanc is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and director of the Energy Innovation Initiative at the George Washington University. Her research goals are to create next-generation energy solutions leveraging advanced materials and manufacturing techniques. Previously, she was a scientist at a startup company where she created research, development, and manufacturing for energy technologies and evaluated new power generation materials. Prior to pursuing a PhD, she was a math and physics teacher at a multicultural high school through Teach for America. Saniya obtained a PhD and MS in mechanical engineering with a minor in materials science at Stanford University. She was a Churchill Scholar at University of Cambridge where she received an MPhil in engineering, and she has a BS in mechanical engineering with a minor in French from Georgia Institute of Technology. In 2018, the American Society of Engineering Education named Saniya one of its “20 Under 40” high-achieving researchers and educators, and she received the NSF CAREER award in 2020. She expends a lot of energy trying to keep up with her husband and daughter, and she cultivates an emerging passion for urban vegetable gardening.