alumnae news letter

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Alumnae Newsletter SWE-UIUC 2006

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Foreword Hi! My name is Janice and I am SWE’s Grad-Alumnae Relations Chair. As a chair, I work with our Continuing Membership Director, Jun Song, to organize activities and programs to strengthen relationships between our graduate students, alumni and our undergraduate members. I am also the Corporate Relations Director so do feel free to contact me if you would like to work with us on events. We have a host of activities planned out this year. This includes the upcoming Alumni Reunion Banquet which we sincerely invite all of you to attend. Jun Song and I were the ones who created this newsletter. The objective was to make it fun and interesting for alumni members to catch up on the news and events happening in SWE. Each member of our officer board has a caricature in the pages of this newsletter which is a representation of themselves. Most are caricatures of their hobbies. We thought this was a fun way to allow you to know our 2006 Officer board a little better! We hope you enjoy this edition of the Alumnae Newsletter!

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Contents 2006 Officer Board 4 Word from the President 5 Committees Community Service 6 Grad-Alumnae 7 Workshop 8 Outreach 8 Membership Recruitment 9 Region H Conference 10 Night With Industry’ 06 12 Spotlight on Professor Scott Kelly 13 Alumni Feature Section 16 Announcements 20 Photo Album 21 Quick Links and Contact 22

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Our 2006 Officer Board

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Word from the President 'Hello to all our UIUC SWE Alumnae! I’d like to take a moment to introduce myself, my name is Laura Gawinski and I am the 2006 SWE President. You may recognize me as the former Alumnae Relations Director. I’m very excited for the enthusiasm that our new officer board has for the upcoming events and programs planned for this year. These include Mom’s Day Banquet, a Mentor Program and a Girl Scout Workshop Day. On behalf of the entire officer board, I would like to invite you to these and all of our future events. For more information, please take a look at our website http://webspace.ncsa.uiuc.edu/swe/index.html . Feel free to contact myself or Jun if you are on campus and interested in talking or meeting with the 2006 officer board about your experiences after graduation or SWE while you were attending the university. I hope to meet you at one point or another within the upcoming year or thereafter. Best Wishes, Laura Gawinski 2006 UIUC SWE President '

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Committees SWE has four different committees headed by five officers which focuses on organizing activities centered on different aspects of school and the community. The four committees are Grad-Alumnae, Community Service, Outreach, Workshop and Team TECH. Community Service Melissa Kosobud, Community Service Director - This is a busy semester for the SWE community service committee. In February we assembled and decorated Valentines Day care packages for kids who had the spend the holiday at the Crisis Nursery Center. In March we are helping run games at booths at a local elementary school's carnival. We are also starting to fund raise for Bowl for Kids' Sake, a charity that supports a mentoring program for between 5 and 18 years old. Collecting pop tabs off aluminum cans we are supporting 'Pull to Access' a charity which helps disabled people to become more independent and later on in the spring hope to return to the Crisis Nursery Center to help garden.

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Continuing Membership Director Jun and Committee Chair Janice are planning and organizing varieties of activities to provide network opportunities for SWE graduate member and alumnae. Our responsibilities include SWE Alumnae Newsletter, Alumnae Reunion Banquet, graduate student social events and SWE Mentor Program. This semester, the monthly Graduate Students Social Dinners involved active graduate students, professor, and SWE officers. They all enjoyed the time meeting new friends, sharing experience and having fine meal. We are trying our best on the reunion banquet, mentor program and more meaningful activities. Grads-Alumnae Committee Continuing Membership Director – Jun Song

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OUTREACH Nicole Rose, Outreach Director - I have two major events planned in April for Outreach. On April 1 we will be hosting a Girl Scout Workshop with Floatin' Illini to help local girl scouts earn badges. We are planning most of it and there will be close to 80 girls registered. We also host Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day every year, which is open to all children of UofI faculty. The kids get to attend lab demonstrations and perform small experiments. WORKSHOP Adina Macinca, Member Enrichment Director is actively planning exciting workshops for the spring semester. On March 12th there will be a Pie Baking Workshop to celebrate the upcoming Pie Day. Other upcoming workshops are: Ballroom Dancing, Leadership Lingo, and a Yoga workshop. Also, she will plan a couple workshops for the high school seniors coming to Little Sister Weekend in April.

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MEMBER RECRUMENT Jessica Wood - I am the Recruitment Director for the University of Illinois Chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE).  I am currently working on putting together two programs, the calling program and little sister weekend.  The calling program is where current SWE members call all the high school girls accepted to the University of Illinois in engineering and technical majors.  For Little Sister Weekend, high schoolers are invited to spend the weekend with a current SWE member.  When the girls arrive on Thursday night, they get to experience a SWE general meeting first hand.  The girls will also enjoy an ice-cream social and get to shadow their big sister and experience engineering and non-engineering classes at the university.  They will also attend a panel discussion where the girls can ask any questions that they have to a panel of SWE members.  I am proud to be in charge of these events because I believe SWE is a very helpful organization, resource, and group of girls. We pride ourselves on developing personal relationships with these potential new freshmen and look forward to them joining our organization.

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Region H Conference On a regional level, our UIUC SWE Section is part of Region H. March 3rd -5th we sent 12 delegates from our section to the Region H Conference at Iowa State University. The theme this year was 'Strengthen your Roots and Reach for the Sky.' The purpose of the conference is to bring together student and professional SWE members by enriching personal character and advance professionalism in the field of engineering. The weekend was filled with activities including a career fair featuring over thirty companies, a networking luncheon, and developmental seminars. Nights were concluded with planned social events for the conference attendees. Overall, the weekend was a success. Keep a look out at swe.org to find information on attending the SWE National Conference coming this November in Kansas City. External Vice President – Meghan Jones

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Region H Conference SWE Presidents Iowa State Union Our SWE Attendees Dinner Dinner

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Night With Industry 06 Night With Industry this year was one of SWE’s most popular events. This year, it was held at the Illini Union. We had 15 leading companies in the engineering industry that joined us for an evening of fine dining and great networking with students. Some of these companies include Deloitte, Motorola, IBM, General Mills and Lockheed Martin. The night was sectioned into three major sub-events; dinner, informational sessions and a mocktail session finale. During the informational sessions, students could either speak to company representatives at the exhibition booth area or attend informational sessions in private rooms put up by the companies. Students had numerous opportunities to interact with recruiters and learn about the various companies they were interested in. The three hour program for the event ended off with a mocktail session. Students and company representatives were invited to sip refreshing mocktails while keeping up the conversations. Corporate Relations Director -Janice Quek

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Professor Scott Kelly is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at U of I. This semester he became an adviser of SWE. Professor Kelly earned his B.S. Degree in Cornell University, and finished his master and Ph.D. degree in California Institute of Technology. He has been at U of I since 2001, teaching classes in mechanical engineering and conducting research in geometric mechanics, nonlinear dynamics and control, theoretical and experimental hydrodynamics, robotic locomotion, exterior differential systems. Interview Q: Why did you choose to be a professor in mechanical engineering? A: Academia rewards creativity. If I come up with a good scientific idea, my being able to pursue it is simply a matter of my convincing others to support it. That was somewhat true when I worked in industry, but there were limits on the scope of ideas that were relevant to my employer's interests. As a professor, I get to think as far outside the box as I'd like. Q: How did you become a SWE faculty adviser? A: SWE officer enrolled in my undergraduate class last semester. Her enthusiasm for everything SWE was doing inspired me to volunteer. Spotlight on…… Professor Scott Kelly

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Q: If you have to name one major strength of SWE, what would it be? A: I'm really impressed by the number of balls SWE manages to keep in the air. So many members volunteer to help with so many philanthropic activities in such an organized way... It's obvious that SWE's doing a lot of good Q: Is there any interesting fact about you that you'd like to share with SWE alumnae? A: Nah. I'm not so interesting. Q: What are your hobbies? A: I write music, I travel, I worry about animal-welfare issues. Q: What's your opinion on work-life balancing? A: I think different approaches work for different people. Some of my colleagues maintain very strict work schedules to protect their home lives from work-related intrusions, but that's never been my style. I don't really distinguish my academic activities from my other activities; ultimately, they're all things I do because I enjoy them or because they're important to me on a personal level. Spotlight on…… Professor Scott Kelly

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Our Other Officers Social Director -Laura Murphy Office Operations Director -Lindsay Smaron Treasurer -Carol Shaffer Information Director -Chelsey Walker Internal Vice-President -Kristine Yu Web-Based Information Director - Daria Zelasko Secretary - Raathai Molian Technical Programs Director - Ipshita Ray

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FEATURE SECTION – KEEP IN TOUCH Hear from several excellent SWE alumnae… Erica Hausfeld (formerly Messinger)  Product Support Engineer  System Products Division  Agilent Technologies, Inc.  I first wanted to introduce myself as I graduated with my BSEE in Dec 98 and was extremely active with both SWE and also working in the WIE office my last 3 years at UIUC.  I've been back many times with my company, Agilent Technologies, as I used to manage our recruiting team at UIUC.  My colleague Jim Curran recently took over those responsibilities and thus will likely once again begin engaging with the SWE student section on campus.  I hope to return to campus again soon myself too as I'll be joining the ECE Dept Alumni Advisory Board for a 3-year term beginning later this fall.    As SWE has always been extremely important to me, I continue to remain active professionally and in recent years, more at a national level.  In 2003 I joined the SWE Corporate Partnership Council which meets three times a year to advise the SWE Board of Directors and share best practices among the member companies.  And to leverage that relationship, I launched an Agilent internal SWE Task Force pulling together women from all of our Agilent US sites which has been creating a virtual community of support for our female employees.   

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My introduction with SWE began at UIUC when I was still in high school and was highly influenced by my experiences during a Little Sister Weekend as a prospective student all the way from Washington, DC.  The student section at UIUC has always been strong and I'm thrilled to see that still be the case as you do such important work.  My career I am currently a Service and Support Engineer in the System Products Division of Agilent Technologies.  I've worked in a number of different roles in technical marketing and most recently spent 2-1/2 years leading and managing the deployment of our global Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system at our Loveland, Colorado facility.  Agilent Technologies, formerly of Hewlett Packard, is the largest electronic test and measurement company globally.    My family life I married my beloved in September 2005 and we are living just outside of Boulder, Colorado.  In April 2006, we are thrilled to be bringing home a Spanish Water Dog puppy, Breindel.    My hobbies I love reading, watching films, the performing and visual arts, enjoying good food, doing pilates, spending time with my partner and friends, building community, pursuing spiritual growth, speaking, learning and traveling.   

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My news I married my beloved in September 2005.  FYI, my maiden name is Erica Messinger.  My UIUC SWE Big Sister, Kristen Carosielli, now Kristen Rossi (also married in 2005), and another important UIUC SWE friend, Jennifer Antanaitis, were in attendance.  Other UIUC SWE dear friend Tesha Sengupta was there in spirit (she was unable to attend).  OPINION – WORK LIFE BALANCING ART Work-life balance is essential.  I know for myself that I am unhappy and unhealthy when I'm not taking care of myself and establishing good boundaries to identify when I put down the work. We have to create it for ourselves.  Work-life balance means something different to all of us and thus we need to identify what we individually need and then go take care of ourselves - whether it be to exercise, spend time with friends, spent time with a partner, a pet, children, pursue personal interests, be involved in community, and even if it's just to 'veg' out sometimes.

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FEATURE SECTION – KEEP IN TOUCH Hear from several excellent SWE alumnae… Nicole (Scanlan) Wilson  Class of 2002  Wedding photo from June 28, 2003  I work for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. We bought a house in Bloomington, IL about 18 months ago.  My email address snickerd3@aol.com. Started my own business as Pampered Chef Consultant in my spare time.  Paige Reardon Bensing  Research Engineer  phone: 859.232.1837  preardon@lexmark.com  I received my BS in Materials Science and Engineering in 2000.  I have worked at Lexmark for almost 6 years as an Applied Research  Engineer. I got married in 2003 and just had a baby girl Feb10th.  Kaiya Noelle. I play soccer and tennis and I have a monthly book club. 

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SWE Mentor Program SWE-UIUC invited you to join our 06- 07 Mentor Program! Volunteering as a mentor is an enriching way to pass on your knowledge and experience to a student. SWE's Mentoring Program helps establish relationships between underclassmen and upperclassmen, undergrads and grads, and college students and professionals.  U of I alumnae are in high demand! This email/telephone based program, supplemented by growth-orientated social activities, makes finding time for mentoring easy. As an alumnae mentor, you also have the chance to meet your mentee at SWE Alumnae Reunion Banquet. Interested? Please simply email your name, company, position, preference for mentee to Continuing Membership Director Jun (junsong2@uiuc.edu). Or if you have any question, please feel free to contact Jun as well. We are looking forward your response! Announcements AWARD – OUTSTANDING SOCIETY The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Section of the Society of Women Engineers was awarded Outstanding Society of the Year by Engineering Council. This award recognizes the society that has promoted engineering leadership to their members and fellow societies over the past year to the greatest degree. Engineering Council is the organization that governs the over 70 engineering organizations on campus. Therefore this is a high honor that recognizes our organization over the past year for events such as Night With Industry and member support workshops.  -- COE representative Kristiann Rushton COE Representative -Kristiann Rushton

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PHOTO ALBUM Carrie Busey FunFest Officer Bonding Potluck Semi-Formal

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Links National SWE Home http://www.swe.org/ 2006 SWE Officers http://webspace.ncsa.uiuc.edu/shwe/officers.html SWE – UIUC Alumnae http://webspace.ncsa.uiuc.edu/swe/alumni.html Engineering at the U of I http://www.engr.uiuc.edu/ Support SWE-UIUC For individual support, please contact Continuing Membership Director Jun Song junsong2@uiuc.edu For corporate support, please contact Corporate Relations Director Janice Quek jquek2@uiuc.edu We appreciate your financial support and career-planning assistance. Thank you! Contact SWE E-Mail: swe@uiuc.edu Phone: (217) 244-8867 Fax: (217) 244-4974 Office: 110A Engineering Hall  1308 W. Green Street Urbana, IL 61801 For information on a particular event or program please contact one of the officers.