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FIVE FEMALE ENGINEERING PROFESSORS WELCOMED IN SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING.
Men far outnumber women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). According to Sharon Jones, the dean of the School of Engineering, there are far fewer female students than male students in the engineering department, with women making up about 26 percent of the department last year.
This year, The university of Portland welcomes five new female engineering professors and two of whom are women of color. They are Rajaa Alqudah (Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Science), Christina Ivler (Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering ) , Nazanin Mansouri (Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering), Jennifer Symons (Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering) and Kathleen Bieryla (Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering) .
Alqudah embraces being a woman of color in a male-dominated field, and hopes for more diversity in engineering. When she was a student, she would find herself the only female in a classroom and often times feel alone. However, she said she believes that the industry is changing, and more women are starting to get involved
As a woman in engineering, Ivler said she feels delighted whenever more women are involved.
“In the beginning of the (Iranian) revolution, I remember hearing in the radio that the capacity of a woman’s brain is not the same as the capacity of man’s brain,” Mansouri said. “I was very good at math, so it became my mission to prove them wrong.”
While pursuing her graduate degree, Symons was involved with outreach efforts at UC Davis to promote STEM for young girl
Bieryla had an unusual undergraduate classroom experience, where there was a strong female presence in the class. She never felt out of place until a mechanical engineering graduate class where she looked around the classroom and found that she was the only woman.