THE UNIVERSIT Y OF VERMONT C O L L EG E O F E N G I N E E R I N G & M AT H E M AT I C A L S C I E N C E S
WOMEN IN STEM
SOLVING FOR GENDER EQUITY In UVM’s College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, we believe that creating a better world means creating a more inclusive one. Women remain underrepresented in the science and engineering workforce. We strive to create an environment where all students are welcome and mentored, where unparalleled opportunities lead to success, and where students graduate with the knowledge and the passion to go out into the world and change it for the better. Read on to see how women are thriving and leading at UVM and beyond.
COLLEGE OF
ROAD TO THE FUTURE How do we design a more sustainable transportation
E N“GOnce I Nyou E Egive R I aNgirl G aAcomputer N D and show her what she can do, the possibilities are endless.”
MATHEMATICAL LISA AULTMAN-HALL, FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF THE UVM TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH CENTER
infrastructure? How do we better understand travel patterns? How does social equity affect our transportation options? How can we develop climate-resilient roads?
These are some of the questions engineering professor Lisa AultmanHall is exploring in her research today. But her curiosity extends back decades. “I’ve been obsessed with transportation my whole life,” she says. “I remember sitting in traffic congestion as a small child in Toronto and being intrigued— where is the bottleneck?”
—Nikki Allen ’19, a computer science major from Bronx, N.Y., has worked with the national organization Girls Who Code. She’ll graduate with internship experience at AOL and Bank of America, looking to begin a career in cybersecurity.
SCIENCES
UVM Highlights: attending Grace Hopper, the world’s largest gathering of women technologists, and mentorship from faculty, including Computer Science chair Maggie Eppstein. “For my whole college career, Maggie has stayed by my side and supported me through everything,” she says.
V Our brand-new facilities were designed for better collaboration across the STEM disciplines. Learn and work alongside scientists from multiple fields—from engineering to chemistry—using cuttingedge technology to address the world’s most pressing problems.
Given the broad-ranging and complex nature of how and why humans move about—and how our changing world might impact that—Aultman-Hall takes an interdisciplinary approach. Since 1995, she’s worked on more than $20 million in grants, some her own research projects, and many collaborations intended to attract diverse disciplines to the study of transportation systems. She also involves her students in her work. Recent research topics of her undergraduate students range from “Understanding Bicycle Ridership” to “Long Distance Travel Decisions and Model Structures.”
WHERE OUR GRADS GO >
>| Laura Balzer ’08
Assistant professor of biostatistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
>| Diane Greene ’76
Founder of VMware and senior vice president for Google Cloud
>| Hilary Hickingbotham ’14 Making the most of UVM’s breadth of academic offerings, Madeline Pomicter ‘18 is pursuing a double major in mechanical engineering (CEMS) and neuroscience, in the College of Arts and Sciences. UVM Highlight: Landing an internship with NASA, funded by the Vermont Space Grant Consortium. There, she researched and designed a spacecraft that could operate at Mars orbit. Getting the nod by security at Langley’s gates, she says, “is very cool.”
Biomedical engineering major Lara Weed ’18 has worked on research projects with faculty from the Larner College of Medicine, located on the same campus as CEMS. One project investigated the use of wearable sensor technology to study the rehabilitation of hip replacement patients. UVM Highlight: “I actually was able to submit an abstract,” of the sensor research, “to the Biomedical Engineering Society conference in Phoenix, Arizona where I gave an oral presentation. That was my first one ever and it was really scary but very exciting, and it was a great experience.”
Manufacturing engineer at Stryker, an international medical technology company
>| Laura Wildman ’89
Head of the New England office for the ecological restoration firm Princeton Hydro.
>| Suma Desu ’12
Machine Learning Engineer at Apple
UVM.EDU/CEMS