Women in Engineering: WEP Celebrates 20 Years of Leadership Development
L-R: Joyce Chiu and Ashley Evans
In 1938, Leah Moncure (BSCE 1937) became the first woman to be licensed as a professional engineer in Texas. Since then, thousands of women have graduated from our department and followed in her footsteps. The is year, the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Women in Engineering Program (WEP) celebrates its 20th anniversary of helping women develop as engineering leaders. We would like to honor that milestone by highlighting four of our undergraduate students who have shown impressive drive and aplomb in and out of the classroom since their arrival on campus.
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Joyce Chiu moved to Sugar Land, Texas from Taiwan when she was 14 years old. Originally interested in studying government at UT-Austin, she was accepted into our program by chance and was immediately intrigued by classroom topics and the engineering atmosphere. Chiu is now an architectural engineering senior and is taking classes in structural engineering, construction and building environmental systems in order to gain a holistic understanding of her major. She is also president of the Architectural Engineering Institute and enjoys the organization’s participation in national design competitions and the sense of community it fosters. “I appreciate how hard our department tries to establish communication with students,” she says. “They are constantly trying to make our program better on all levels.” Chui plans to go on to law school to study intellectual property or construction law.
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A salutatorian from New Braunfels High School, Ashley Evans is now serving as ASCE president. Over the past few years, she has held numerous leadership roles within the organization which has encouraged the development of meaningful relationships with peers, faculty, alumni and industry. “I have found that student organizations provided me with a smaller family within CAEE and many opportunities to interact with faculty outside of the classroom and company representatives outside of interviews,” she says. Since 2008, she has held two separate internships with TxDOT and one with Alan Plummer Associates, Inc. After graduation, Evans will return to CAEE to further her studies in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering. She hopes to be able to use her multi-disciplinary background to work on today’s challenging problems.
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L-R: Stacy Holland and Maggie Richani
Stacy Holland was drawn to our department’s respectability in the engineering community and was influenced by her sister’s positive experience here as an undergraduate and graduate student. During her freshman year, she explored a variety of organizations and decided to get involved with the UT-ASCE so that she could get to know more students in her classes, meet professionals in her field, and learn about her future career through hands-on activities. She has served as ASCE president, outreach chair, and Eastwoods Park service project coordinator. “I love the diversity of the department,” she says. “I have been able to take classes from excellent professors from a number of areas, making me a more well-rounded student and more versatile individual.” Holland encourages all students to get involved and to never be afraid to ask for help. She plans to use her degree to go into environmental remediation.
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As Vice President of Chi Epsilon, Maggie Richani realized that being an officer of an organization allows for a different undergraduate experience. “You become more aware of the department’s policies and many doors open for networking opportunities. It teaches you to grow and mature, and prepares you for the profession,” she says. Richani grew up in Beirut and moved to Texas for college since she has family here. She feels that the department has some of the best faculty who are recognized for their work. She would like to go on and earn a master’s in Construction Engineering and Project Management so that she can work in engineering management in the oil or construction industry. “There are many opportunities for women in engineering,” she says. “Being an engineer helps you grow, experiment and blossom into a valuable woman in society.”
For more information on the WEP celebration, please click here.