Notable Efforts in Diversity Through Service Leadership

Throughout my career, I have been devoted many efforts towards diversity. While at Virginia Tech, I was a part of a team who successful won a National Science Foundation Advance grant that supported institutional transformation to ensure the success of women faculty in the academy (Visit AdvanceVT). Throughout my time at Virginia Tech, I served as a co-PI for the VT Advance grant. The specific efforts I led was “empowering women as leaders and scholars” (Empowering Women) on campus, which we did by developing specific leadership plans; providing research seed grants; and supporting mentoring micro-grants.Over the fourteen years, I have had the privilege to serve as Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Penn State, I led a number of initiatives with my faculty colleagues through strategic planning to diversify the people and the research portfolio. Since 2006, our Department has hired 39 new faculty to our Department in which 40% of those hires were from underrepresented groups. During my tenure as the Department Head, the number of women faculty increased from 6% to 25% and other underrepresented faculty increased from 2% to 6%. At the same time, we developed impactful faculty mentoring programs that supported the new faculty which has led to many successful CAREER and other young investigator awards.

2019’s Voith scholarship recipients in mechanical engineering (See article)

2019 ME Women Faculty and Grad Students

The percentage of women students in mechanical engineering students also increased from 9% to 18% between 2006 and 2020 while enrollments also grew. Several programs were put in place to attract women students to mechanical engineering including the Engineering Ambassador Program, the It’s all about ME Program, the Engineers without Borders, and numerous scholarship opportunities (See article).Through my professional service, I have also promoted activities to build communities especially among women. In 2005, I introduced the Women’s Dinner at TurboExpo. This event grew over the years to have industry sponsors and is now attended by more than 100 women students and professionals working in turbomachinery.