Leslie Gulledge (left) and Barbara Read (right) at the Engineering & Technology Career Expo, Jan 23, 2014.
The Dallas Section of the Society of Women Engineers supported the recent Engineering & Technology Career Expo held January 23, 2014 at the Richardson Civic Center. The Dallas Morning News, Monster, and Expo Experts, LLC presented the Career Expo. Requirements for attendees included a minimum of two years of experience in an Engineering or Technology field plus a related degree.
In addition to promoting the Career Expo on its website, Dallas SWE hosted a booth at the Expo. Approximately one in six of the Career Expo attendees visited the Dallas SWE booth. Hosting a booth allowed Dallas SWE to share information about professional development meetings, networking opportunities, and STEM outreach. Several visitors at the SWE booth were former collegiate SWE members; they were encouraged to check out the action of the professional section. Some of the employers exhibiting at the Career Expo also visited the Dallas SWE booth, expressing an interest in hiring women engineers.
Forging a career path may not come with an exact road map, but members of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) were given the next best thing at a recent meeting at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD).
Jan 22, 2014 Professional Development Meeting with SWE Dallas and UTD
Samantha Dwinell, vice president of human resources for Talent Management at Texas Instruments, addressed the SWE audience, which included members of the Dallas professional chapter and UTD student chapter. While attendees ranged in age and background, all were united in their focus on engineering and leadership.
“There are many different paths, particularly for engineers,” Dwinell told the audience. “There may be specific types of engineering roles, but the reality is that the field is open for you to forge your own path. And for engineers it’s a wide path to explore.”
Dwinell discussed the importance and need to balance three key elements as engineers consider advancement throughout their career: Insight, Direction, and Capability.
“Before you can move forward, you need to first have insight into who you are, what you value and what you are good at,” she offered. “You should also understand your company’s focus and direction, and what they value. When you combine all those elements, you’ll perform your best. Great performance is the starting point. From there, work to develop your capability and continuously push yourself to strengthen your skills.”
Dwinell reflected on her own career at Texas Instruments to offer attendees relatable advice on forging a career path.
“If you want others to put you into leadership roles, you have to first see yourself as a leader,” Dwinell said. “If things aren’t going right, go left. Use everything around you as a learning opportunity, ask for help, and continuously seek feedback. Reach up and connect with leaders at school, within your company, or organization. And when you start to forge your path, bring others along. Continue to build relationships and be the kind of leader that helps to develop others.”
Dwinell explained that career advancement isn’t just a job title, leadership can take many forms. “Not everyone wants to be the head of the company,” she said. “Advancing your career may mean you stay in the same area, and dig deeper to grow your skills and become an expert at what you do.”
Before opening the discussion to questions, Dwinell reinforced the need to communicate your value. “Have an elevator speech ready,” she said. “Be able to succinctly state your expertise and value, because you never know when opportunity will present itself or who you will meet, at school, at your job, or in life.”
Tips to forging your path
Own your career
Insight into yourself and what you value
Understand what your organization values, including how they define great performance
Continuously build your capability and improve
Key methods for development: on-the-job, learning from others and formal training
Outreach is aspiring! Sci-Girls, a PBS KIDS weekly series and website, is out to change how millions of tween girls think about science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM! In addition to the television show, SciGirls training workshops integrate inquiry-based science instruction with a commitment to gender equity. To date, the SciGirls team has used both online and in-person methods to train over 500 formal and informal science education providers, offering professional development opportunities at numerous conferences nationwide.
SciGirls Group, Dallas 2014
On Saturday January 25, 2014, Dallas SWE hosted a Sci-Girls workshop enabled by a mini grant from the Twin Cities Public Television. We had around 30 girl scout leaders, school and university educators, SWE Dallas engineers and UNT SWE students attend the program led by two volunteer coordinators, Katelyn Wamsted from GirlStart and Danielle Rodgers from Girl Scouts of Central Texas. The program started at 9 am and participants learned data and research driven suggestions on how to communicate with a tone of inclusion to both genders. The response to event and club opportunities differed among boys and girls and it became clear that with good intentions people keen to bring more underrepresented groups into engineering can be more effective with small changes. The interactive approach brought participants to communicate with each other.
Lunch was provided from Dallas SWE with a good ‘ol Cowboy Chicken assortment. The afternoon session was designed around 3 activities that were hands on experiences of Sci-Girls activities for engineering, physical science and forensics. The closing program confirmed the increasingly positive comments in the day with all participants thanking the coordinators and Dallas SWE for an experience that was high impact, encouraging and enabling. Bria Miles, event chair for UNT Student section and Design Your World- Stem conference for Girls, co-chair, said “I think the workshop was very enlightening and enjoyable. I learned a lot and had a lot of fun.” Mayaria Johnson, UNT SWE section President said “I thoroughly enjoyed Sci-Girls as well. It was very motivational. I am looking forward to incorporating some of the activities and techniques we learned to get girls engaged in STEM!” JoAnn Harris Hill, of IBM, showed through her creative circuit that the Sci-Girls theme of create engages more than build that the two were indeed one. A Title I teacher who drove in from Mesquite said she felt inspired to be able to bring more opportunities to enable emergence from poverty.
In addition to hosting the Sci-Girls Connect workshop, Dallas SWE has pledge its support to Twin Cities Public Television for a new Latina Sci-Girls television special and an educational outreach program! We hope that Latina Sci-Girls is selected by the National Science Foundation so we can share this excellent resource with the Spanish-speaking community in North Texas.
In summary, the event was educational, inspirational and will enable all who attended to encourage young men and women to #BeThatEngineer.
-Nandika DSouza, Dallas SWE Vice President of Outreach
Happy new year, everyone! We hope you had a bright and happy holiday season and we’re excited about the busy year ahead. We’ll be starting the year off with our monthly professional development meeting: “Forging Pathways to Leadership.” Are you curious about what HR looks for in employees? Do you want to develop your leadership skills? Then RSVP to attend just joint professional development meeting with Dallas SWE and UTD SWE! We will hear a great presentation from Sam Dwinell, the Vice-President of Human Resources for Texas Instruments!
When: Wednesday, January 22, 2014. Networking begins at 6pm, main event begins at 6:30pm.
About the Speaker: As Vice President of Human Resources, Samantha Dwinell leads TI’s global talent management function, ensuring that TI has a continual pipeline of diverse internal and external talent ready and committed to meeting TI business needs. Her areas of expertise include organizational change, organization development, leadership development, coaching, communications, employee engagement, and talent management. Samantha has a strong background in global HR, including direct experience managing HR in foreign locations.
There are also a number of events coming up in the next few months. For details on the events listed below, visit our Calendar page where you can bring up more information from our Google calendar. Save these dates!
Also, we’ve added a couple of new events and job openings to our Careers page so if you or someone you know is looking for engineering opportunities, please go take a look. That’s about it for now! Stay tuned for updates on these and other events throughout the winter and spring.
This is a day-long workshop based on SciGirls, a PBS KIDS weekly series and website out to change how millions of tween girls think about science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM. Educators across Texas are invited to attend this free professional development opportunity and discover how to engage young women (ages 8-13) through research-based, high quality activities and resources.
Participants (adults) attending the workshop will:
Learn about the latest research for exciting and engaging girls (and boys) in STEM.
Experience four hands-on STEM activities such as using dough to teach circuits, designing unique ways to measure your strde, manipulating an object to be neutrally buoyant, and creating your own experiment to identify mystery plastics.
Leave with curriculum for 20 hands-on, video-enhanced activities that put a creative twist on teaching STEM.
Learn how to modify any activity to excite and engage kids in STEM using the SciGirls Seven.
Discover additional online resources that enhance teaching and learning experiences for all kids.
Dallas SWE will follow the success of its October 19th event Design Your World-STEM conference for girls at the same location March 29th for 6th through 12th grade girls. Stay tuned here for details on this and other efforts!
Nandika D’Souza
Dallas SWE Vice President of Outreach
On November 19, 2013, Dallas SWE hosted a speaker meeting at La Madeleine near SMU’s campus with guest speakers Paulina Diaz, P.E. and Laura Geiger. Paulina and Laura work for ccrd, an engineering consulting firm, on projects promoting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) with a special focus in the healthcare industry.
Their informative presentation gave an overview of the LEED rating system, what it takes to become a credentialed LEED professional, and some of the specific projects they have been a part of at ccrd including the Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, TX and the Baylor Cancer Center in Dallas, TX. It was really interesting to hear about the different challenges LEED engineers face when designing modifications to existing buildings or new buildings from scratch. Paulina and Laura highlighted the delicate balance between the state of existing infrastructure, cost, functionality, and environmental concerns. Thanks to Paulina and Laura for enlightening us on your experience with green energy design, and thanks to Dallas SWE Vice President Barbara Read for setting up this month’s meeting location and learning opportunity! You can view the LEED topic PowerPoint presentation here.
After our speaker presentation, Dallas SWE President Jennifer Vilbig went over some SWE business and awarded afew lucky attendees with door prizes! You can view this month’s meeting agenda at our Newsletter page.
If you haven’t already RSVPed for the December 12 Holiday Party, hosted jointly by Dallas SWE and DFW ATW, you can do so at the Eventbrite website! It will be a great time to celebrate the successes of 2013 and enjoy each other’s company for the holidays so don’t miss it!!
Last but not least, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families! We hope to see you again soon.
