Registration for WE22 in Houston, TX from October 20-22 is now open! You can find out more and register here. Check out our summary of WE20 too!
Let us know if you’re going by filling out the Dallas SWE Conference Coordination survey. If you’re interested, we can help you find other carpoolers, roommates, share rides to the conference center from the airport if you’re flying, and put you on the Dallas SWE Slack WE21 Channel, so we can keep in touch while there! If you have questions about WE22 or travel coordination, please email us at dallas.swe@gmail.com.
I am greatly looking forward to the opportunity to serve you as President for FY23! Thank you for trusting me to guide Dallas SWE for this year. I have been involved with SWE since 2008, and with Dallas SWE since 2017. I have held many of the officer roles within Dallas SWE since that time, and it has been wonderful to see SWE grow through its array of programming and innovations over the years!
The outgoing officers of FY22 and incoming officers for FY23 just met on July 23rd for our annual transition meeting, and we are very excited about the great things in our pipeline for this year. Our VP of Membership, Claire Jordan, our Treasurer, Katie Mills, and our Secretary, Sammy Zellner, are going to continue doing amazing work in their roles. We have elected two new officers, our VP of Outreach, Cyonna Holmes, and our VP of Professional Development, Ana Gonzalez, to serve for FY23 and we are excited about the experience they bring!
One of our goals for our Dallas SWE Professionals is to oversee an impactful year of professional development and member networking, so that you can get the value that helps you advance in your path even faster. Ana and Claire are already crafting exciting programming on these topics.
We will also build off our impactful outreach programs so we can influence more young women to be interested in engineering. Cyonna has a great head start on outreach for this year, with new partnerships and opportunities in the pipeline.
We also intend to grow our sponsorships. Katie has been doing a great job in securing new partnerships for FY23 already, and we look forward to growing the list of companies that sponsor Dallas SWE so that we can continue to put on more great events. If you work for, or know of, a company that might want to sponsor Dallas SWE, please let us know so we can begin having those important conversations.
On that note, if you participated and enjoyed any of our programming from last year, from Outreach, to Professional Development, to Member Socials, to Social Media interaction, to Fundraising, and more, please consider volunteering for a committee. Fill out this survey if you’re interested, and we will be in touch with you soon to get you added to our monthly committee calls.
Also, please remember to renew your SWE membership if you have not already done so. Renewing your membership allows you continued access to the dozens of events we put on a year, networking opportunities, and career support. You can renew your membership by logging into your profile on the SWE Website. Please let me know if you have any questions about the renewal process or any feedback about renewing your membership.
Finally, I would like to thank and recognize our previous SWE President, Amanda Alsbrook, for all that she has done to keep Dallas SWE moving forward in our past two years, especially with navigating through the strain the pandemic has caused. Amanda, thank you for all of your hard work and effort to improve Dallas SWE and get us to where we are today!
Dallas SWE is pleased to recognize Ashley Johnson as a Member of the Month for August 2022! With our Member of the Month program, Dallas SWE seeks to recognize some of our non-officer members whose technical contributions, leadership accomplishments, or SWE volunteer service are particularly noteworthy. If you would like to nominate a Dallas SWE member for his/her contributions, please email us at dallas.swe@gmail.com.
Check out Ashley’s story below!
I grew up in a family that encouraged me in anything I wanted to pursue, whether education, sports, or anything else – as long as I gave it my best. My dad is an engineer, and I followed in his footsteps with a Mechanical Engineering degree from Texas A&M.
I fell in love with engineering my sophomore year of college. My passion continued to grow with my first engineering job – an internship at L3Harris. I was able to use what I was learning at my internship to contextualize my classes and better understand the real-world applications of my education. I started my work at L3Harris as a Mechanical Designer, transitioning the next summer to Mechanical Systems. I remained a member of the Mechanical Systems team for the next six years, where I was able to grow both my technical and my leadership skills. During this time, I also pursued my Master’s in Mechanical Engineering through UTA (using L3Harris’ Education Assistance program). I ultimately got the opportunity to be the Mechanical Systems lead for the program I was working, which led to my next role as a Project Engineer.
This role challenged me in many ways beyond my technical acumen, and I got the opportunity to expand beyond my mechanical background. I also started pursing a Master’s in Systems Engineering through a corporate cohort. I really enjoyed learning more about the programmatic and contractual side of business, but learned I missed being in the technical “weeds”. I had the opportunity to work with some of the Missions System engineers, which ultimately led to my current role as a Systems Engineer. While I could have never predicted this would be my career path, I am so grateful for the various opportunities I have received and the lessons along the way. More than anything, I am grateful for the many people who have invested in me and have given me a chance. I hope that I am able to impact people for the better, like so many have done for me.
When I was growing up, and even in college, I recognized that there were not a lot of women in the sciences and engineering – but I honestly thought that was their choice. My frame of reference was parents who supported me and encouraged me to consider engineering. I discovered once I joined the workplace, not everyone is as supportive. And not every female is encouraged to embrace the STEM aptitude she demonstrates. My husband is an incredible and supportive partner who doesn’t let his ego dictate his reactions to my successes – but it turns out that’s not necessarily the norm.
I got involved in bringing back the Women’s Leadership Employee Resource Group at my workplace in 2017 and served as an officer until December 2021. In this role, I was able to help others grow their networks, feature leaders in various speaker series, be involved in a business book club, and have a voice with our site leadership. I personally learned and grew as a leader, an employee, and engineer, and also a feminist. I found my voice communicating about the complexities of fixing the diversity problems we face in America, and in helping women (and men!) grow.
I joined SWE because I wanted a reach that was broader than my workplace. All the diversity efforts in the world won’t work if we wait until people are in the workplace to care. We have to recognize that there is a pipeline problem, starting when women are very young. My passion is to give back to others in the same way my parents and mentors have given to me – to see their potential, embrace it, and encourage them to learn and grow in ways they never dreamed. SWE has so many opportunities for me to embrace this passion, and I am really enjoying investing in the organization.
Mark your calendar to volunteer with Dallas SWE at the 14th annual Frontiers of Flight Moon Day! The event is Saturday, July 16, 2022 from 10am – 4pm. This year’s Moon Day theme is “Technology Drives Exploration.”
Volunteers will be assisting students with creation of moon landers, where they will to learn about the concepts of drag, shock absorption, and stability.
There are three options to volunteer:
Friday Set-up, 7/15/2022, 3pm-5pm
Saturday Morning, 7/16/2022, 9:30am-1pm
Saturday Afternoon, 7/16/2022, 1pm-4:30pm
You are welcome to volunteer for more than one shift! Please visit the Eventbrite to sign up.
You can check out the recap from our 2019 Moon Day experience here.
More information on Frontiers of Flight and Moon Day can be found here.
We are pleased to announce that our FY23 Dallas SWE Leadership Team has been elected after verifying results from our election, which ran May 1-31. Thank you to everyone who voted and made their voices heard!
Your FY23 Dallas SWE Leadership Team:
President – Rana Karimi
Executive Vice President – Open for appointment
Secretary – Sammy Zellner
Treasurer – Katie Mills (2-year term, completing second year in FY23)
Vice President of Membership – Claire Jordan
Vice President of Outreach – Cyonna Holmes
Investment Committee Member (New 3-year term) – Amanda Alsbrook
Investment Committee Member (3-year term) – Liong So
Investment Committee Member (3-year term) – Katie Gomez
Your new officers and Investment Committee members will start their terms on July 1, 2022, following transition meetings with current Dallas SWE leadership.
Additionally, adoption of our Dallas SWE section procedures passed. To ensure that all SWE sections have compliant governing documents, an amendment by our Society’s Bylaws Committee passed in FY20 to remove Section Bylaws and replace them with Section Agreements or section procedures. These documents are reviewed annually by our Dallas SWE leadership team. For more information on section procedures, please visit https://swe.org/about-swe/governance/committees/bylaws-committee/.
Lastly, don’t forget to renew your membership for FY23 at www.swe.org.
Thank you!
Dallas SWE FY22 Nominating Committee Zaineb Ahmad, Malia Kawamura, Gretchen Landego, and Haley McKeefer
Dallas SWE’s Programs Committee kicked off the 2022 calendar year with a professional development event focused on giving feedback. All SWE chapters in Texas were extended an invitation, and women from the Fort Worth chapter, Austin chapter, and Houston chapter were in attendance virtually. The members first watched a short Ted Talk by LeeAnn Renninger titled The Secret to Giving Great Feedback. Renniger is the CEO and founder of LifeLabs New York, and she broke down a four step process to giving feedback in her video. After everyone watched the video, the group was separated into breakout rooms to practice giving feedback. Scenarios of various work relationships were provided to the women, and the group spent time discussing how they would give feedback in each situation based on the Renniger’s Ted Talk. Dallas SWE thanks all women in attendance from the various chapters, and they look forward to hosting their first, in-person event in over two years at the end of April 2022!
