Engineering and... News

Greetings GW Engineering Community!

During the month of March, we celebrated the impact of women around the world. Women’s History Month is an opportunity to acknowledge the many contributions women have made to further humanity and the strides we’ve made as a society toward gender equity.

Even with the progress that has been made over the last century, there is still more that can and must be done, and there are many disciplines and industries where women remain underrepresented, including engineering and computer science.

At GW Engineering, we are working to address that. Over the last few decades, our school has worked to create an inclusive community where women can thrive and become global leaders in engineering and computer science. This community now includes an undergraduate student body that is 45% female, which is almost double the national average and top-10 nationwide. While we have much work to do to improve the gender diversity of our graduate students and faculty, we are well above national averages in both, and 55% of our faculty hires over the last three years are women. In addition, two of our three Associate Deans are female, and with the recent election of Dr. Vesna Zderic as BME Chair and the summer arrival of Dr. Rebecca Hwa as CS Chair, half of our Department Chairs will be women. Much work remains, but we are proud of this great progress and are deeply grateful to the many people who have made it possible.

One of those people is Computer Science Professor Emerita Dr. Rachelle Heller, who is the Founding Director of our Center for Women in Engineering (WiE). The Center provides events, mentoring, training, and thought leadership that not only make GW Engineering a top school for female engineers but also promote gender equity in the field of engineering more broadly.

As we close out Women’s History Month, we acknowledge that there is still much work to be done and issues of equity to address. I encourage all of us to consider how we can help create gender-equity in our school, our discipline, our community, and our world.

Raise High!

John Lach

Dr. Ken Chong, Research Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, visited King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia for five days in early December 2022. During his visit, Chong gave a seminar on the role of basic and applied research in a modern university and toured the labs, centers, and libraries across campus.

Brittany Wright

Q: How long have you been working at GW and what is your position?

A: I am the Executive Director of Graduate Enrollment Management & Advising at SEAS. I began working at the Office of Graduate Admissions & Student Services (OGA) at SEAS as a coordinator back in December 2010 and became a director in 2015.

Q: What led you to this career?

A: Prior to starting my position at SEAS, I graduated with my M.A. in International Education from GSEHD. Due to my own transformative international experience as a college student, I knew I wanted to work either in study abroad or with international students, ideally facilitating international experiences and opportunities for students. With the growing number of international graduate students joining SEAS at that time, my first job with OGA was a perfect fit!