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Women in STEM Episode 37 – Janelle North, Vehicle Line Planner at Ford Motor Company
Janelle North is a graduate from the University of Michigan – Dearborn with degrees in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management. She has two decades of experience in the automotive industry. Her diverse roles have included design engineering, manufacturing engineering, future technology and product strategy and planning, human-centered design operations, and vehicle personalization for aftermarket accessories. Her career has afforded her extensive travel opportunities, including frequent visits to Mexico City, Germany, and throughout the United States. Two of her most memorable work experiences are off-roading in Moab, Utah and launching in Mexico City!
Several years ago, Janelle developed a strong interest in mindfulness and wellness as a way to combat stress. She is one of the founding members of the Ford Mindfulness Club! The club has grown to over 2700 members globally within the Ford community since 2020. In addition to her professional pursuits, Janelle enjoys mentoring.
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Women in STEM Episode 36 – Aisha Ayoub, Former Engineer at SpaceX
Interview with Aisha Ayoub, who is a Mechanical Engineer from University of Florida (BSME 2007). She has extensive engineering experience at multiple Fortune 100 companies leading development on automobiles, airplanes, spacecrafts, rockets, operating systems, and most recently augmented/ virtual reality devices (AR/VR). Aisha was part of the core team at SpaceX that delivered industry leading historical firsts such as: the first ever reusable rocket (Falcon) to land and be used for reflight; the first private spacecrafts (Dragon) to dock and berth at the International Space Station (ISS) delivering Cargo and Crew. These launches brought crewed spaceflight back to the USA after nearly a decade. Aisha most recently worked on the next generation of AR/ VR devices at Microsoft in Seattle, where she lives with her husband, Omair, and their 2 precocious children, Orhan (8) and Norah (6).
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Women in STEM Episode 33 – Aileen Huang-Saad, Director of Life Sciences, Health and Engineering at the Roux Institute
Interview with Aileen Huang-Saad, who is the Director of Life Sciences, Health, and Engineering Programs at Northeastern’s Roux Institute (Portland, Maine) and an Associate Professor of Bioengineering. Leveraging her experience with design, entrepreneurship, education research, and industry, she seeks to close the gap between higher education and professional practice. Specifically, she is designing interdisciplinary experiential education life sciences, health, and engineering programs to attract, retain, and advance talent in the state of Maine. These programs are designed to re-imagine how higher education and communities can work together to impact economic and talent development. Dr. Huang-Saad currently serves as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Springer’s Biomedical Engineering Education and is a member of the Maine State Workforce Board and the National Academies’ Roundtable on Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Education. She is also an American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Fellow.
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Women in STEM Episode 31 – Wendy Shimata, VP of Autonomous Systems at Varda Space Industries
Interview with Wendy Shimata, who is currently the Vice President of Autonomous Systems at Varda Space Industries, a small space start-up in Los Angeles focused on in-space manufacturing and commercial reentry. She’s responsible for the technical growth and development of the GNC, software and mission operation teams in an effort towards moving towards autonomous systems architectures and execution. Prior to Varda, she was at SpaceX for 7 years working software on crewed spaceflight programs, and Boeing Satellite Systems working in GNC. In her spare time, she loves exploring new coffee and korean barbeque joints in LA and spending time with her three year old daughter.
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Women in STEM Episode 25 – Kalyani Mallela, Manager of Systems Engineering, Starkey Hearing Technologies
Interview with Kalyani Mallela who is Manager of Systems Engineering at Starkey Hearing Technologies. She has also held multiple positions with the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) including president of the Minnesota Section. Kaylani has a Bachelors of Engineering in electronics and communications engineering and Masters of Science in electrical engineering and management of technology.
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Women in STEM Episode 24 – Jennifer Morikawa, Sr Manufacturing Engineer at GM, Past SWE Region Governor
Interview with Jennifer Morikawa, Sr Manufacturing Engineer at General Motors and past SWE Region H Governor.
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Women in STEM Episode 22 – Stacey DelVecchio, Chemical Engineer at Caterpillar, Past SWE President
Interview with Stacey DelVecchio, Chemical Engineer, Additive Manufacturing Product Manager at Caterpillar Inc., Past Society of Women Engineers (SWE) President.
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Women in STEM Podcast Episode 19 – Courtney Thurston, 17 year old unmanned systems engineer
Interview with Courtney Thurston, 17 year old unmanned systems engineer. She recently interned at CERN and will be working as a propulsion intern for SpaceX this summer. Courtney also is working to make the technical fields more accessible, as a longtime editor of Wikipedia, co-founder of Magikstra, executive team member for ProjectCSGirls and as an Online Community Manager for The Scientista Foundation (among others!).
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Women in STEM Podcast Episode 17 – Colleen Layman, SWE President-Elect, Water Resources Environmental Engineer
Interview with Colleen Layman, who is President-Elect of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and Vice President and Resources Business Group Water Principal at HDR.
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Women in STEM Podcast Episode 15 – Elizabeth Bierman, SWE President, Systems Engineer
Interview with Elizabeth Bierman, President of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and Senior Project Engineer at Honeywell Aerospace.
