SWE Illinois brings home hardware at national conference

The Illinois chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) picked up several honors at the recent SWE National Conference in Los Angeles, which annually attracts more than 7,000 female engineers and scientists from around the world.

As a unit, SWE Illinois was recognized with the Outstanding Collegiate Section Award Gold Level, a distinction it has received each year since 2011. The merit is based on the many major events it sponsored, including “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.” 

The unit earned the Collegiate Membership Transition Award for the second straight year. The award recognizes programming that helps members in transitioning from academia to industry. The chapter was a repeat winner of the Collegiate Retention Award for having a high retention rate of SWE members from year to year; the Boeing Multicultural Award for having a highly diverse section and fostering diversity awareness through a variety of events; and the Collegiate Communications Award.

Senior bioengineering major Sarah Laken claimed first place in the undergraduate poster category for “Engineering Brain Cancer in Vitro Models for Clinical Studies.” Researching with professor Brendan Harley and postdoctoral research associate Sara Pedron Haba, Laken is working with brain cancer samples to create an in vitro disease model of cancer to better test the effectiveness of cancer drugs.

Laken was also featured in the Celebrate SWE keynote address delivered by Carla Boragno, Vice President of Site Services at Genetech. Boragno used Laken, who interned for Boragno last summer, as an example of someone who gives back to the community through her commitment to developing future leaders in her many activities on campus.

Two GradSWE leaders earned Outstanding Collegiate Member awards. Samantha Knoll, who founded GradSWE, was recognized “for outstanding contributions to the growth of GradSWE and excellence in building networks between graduate and undergraduate women.”

Ritu Raman was recognized “for early, innovative contributions to her field and for exemplifying resourcefulness and entrepreneurship for the next generation of women engineers.” Knoll and Raman are both graduate students in mechanical science and engineering.

Wang-Ting Chen claimed first place for her poster Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Mixed Culture Algal Biomass from Wastewater Treatment System into Biocrude Oil and Elizabeth Horstman won second place for her poster, Pharmaceutical Crystallization Utilizing Microfluidic Platforms. Danielle Mai and Anna Oldani were also poster finalists.

In addition to the awards, Faith Bradley and Asha Kirchoff, seniors in bioengineering, delivered a successful technical workshop, “Transform Your Presentations And Speak With Impact.” The session gave practical advice to engineers looking to make their technical presentations more engaging and compelling to their audiences.

The Society of Women Engineers is a technical, professional, social, and outreach organization on the Illinois campus under the national SWE organization that includes more than 14,000 members. Its goal is to develop a diverse network of women in pursuit of engineering and science, providing them with mentoring relationships and professional development opportunities, and advocating for the future pursuit of careers in engineering.