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. Our March Member of the Month is Nandika D’Souza!
Nandika Anne D’Souza is a professor at the University of North Texas in a joint appointment with the Mechanical and Energy Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering Departments. She also works in the Deans office as an Associate Dean for Undergraduate students. Her research interests are at the interface of materials-mechanics-manufacturing applying fundamental knowledge to solving problems. She has worked on solving problems such as water decontamination of fracking fluids, biomedical surgical meshes with drug delivery, composites, nanocomposites, flexible packaging, lightweight structures, building materials and sandwich composites and corrosion. She has advised 12 doctoral and 27 Master’s students and authored 6 book chapters, 86 journal and 98 conference papers. Her faculty position comes with many concurrent responsibilities of teaching, research in managing current projects, authoring papers and writing proposals for new projects and service. SWE has been a strong support to her in enabling her through the professional development programming.
Nandika joined the University of North Texas in 1994 as soon as she graduated from Texas A&M University in mechanical engineering with a concentration on mechanics and materials. She worked on a non-contact non-destructive technique using thermal imaging to determine the stress on surfaces and effect of manufacturing to prevent paint from peeling off the new lightweight products being made. She considered moving to industry in 1996 but the option of engaging with students and doing research led her to apply successfully to become the first faculty hired in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. She remained the only woman faculty in the department for 20 years. After 18 years she became a joint professor of the new department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering and shortly after served as associate chair. Noting the needs of undergraduate students in all departments, she moved to the Deans office.
Nandika is passionate and principled about inclusion with respect to gender, race and national origin. With that in mind, she started a Diversity and Excellence in Engineering Night at UNT and replicated it in the DFW SWE-SHPE-NSBE College to Career Night. Her service in SWE is driven by the encouragement she received to become an engineer as an undergraduate when she was considering becoming an English major, the alleviation of the isolation experienced by many women faculty in academia, and the concomitant parenting-career dual responsibilities. To that end she has embraced outreach in Dallas SWE through many years of Design Your World service after its phenomenal creation by Letia Blanco as VP of Outreach and professional development programming through her service as Executive VP. Her personal recognition of the life of a woman faculty has led to engagement with the SWE Women in Academia and WEPAN. She continues to see her faculty career as rewarding both for students and the faculty. Considering the retention of women faculty challenged by low numbers of tenure track women in academia and a lack of networks for women to get research funded, she hosted a panel at WE17 on “How to Get Research Funded.”
On a personal note, Nandika lives in Plano with her two children and husband. Her son recently received his Eagle Scout project. Her daughter Alicia was raised in close connection to Dallas SWE doing both her silver and gold award projects. Alicia is the 2018-2019 President of the Stanford SWE section. Nandika has a passion for cooking international foods and can be found in ethnic grocery stores searching for ingredients in pursuit of this addiction.
wn It: The Power of Women at Work” by Sallie Krawcheck. Written by a Wall Street executive turned entrepreneur, this book discussed career development tools and advice, including the value of mentors, sponsors, a good network, etc., as well as the importance of financial literacy and closing the gender investing gap as women. The book generated great discussion topics, in which the group shared their own career experience and advice.
