On January 14th, the Albuquerque IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) group organized a public talk that was broadcast on Zoom and everyone in the Albuquerque Section was invited to attend. The talk was organized by WIE’s Chair, Khandakar Islam and co-sponsored by the IEEE Albuquerque Section and WIE.

The title of the talk was “A Day in the Life: Being a Woman in Electrical Engineering” and the speaker was Emily Schrock.

Abstract: Although the numbers of women in engineering fields have increased, we are still a minority in the field, and depending on the niche field you enter after college, you could find yourself as an even greater minority. This was the case for me, with about 10% of women in my electrical engineering graduating class, to being the only woman in the TTU pulsed power laboratory working on my thesis, and very commonly one of only a handful of women in my job or at conferences. I will share my experiences as a woman (and new mom) in the engineering field as well as an overview of Sandia Labs and my area of expertise.

About the speaker: Emily Schrock graduated with her BSEE and MSEE from Texas Tech University in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Her master’s thesis was in the testing and failure analysis of wide-bandgap semiconductors for their use in pulsed power systems. She tested Silicon Carbide PiN diodes, MOSFETs, and IGBTs, and performed Silvaco TCAD modeling to help analyze their failures. She had two internships at Texas Instruments and worked in their power supply and battery charging groups as a software engineer and a test engineer. Following graduation in 2017, Emily was hired at Sandia National Laboratories, where she currently works as a senior member of technical staff on a variety of research and development projects mostly centered around pulsed power and RF generation. Her research interests include compact pulsed power components and system design and test, non-linear transmission lines (NLTLs) for RF generation, and photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSS) for power distribution applications. She is a committee member and secretary of the IEEE Pulsed Power Science and Technology (PPST) Nuclear and Plasma Science Society (NPSS) and is serving on the committee for the Pulsed Power Conference (PPC) in 2021.

The following is a link to the recorded talk: https://youtu.be/jqspK05e5vM

We hope you enjoyed the talk and if you were not able to attend it, that you make time in your day to watch the recording.

The officers of the IEEE Albuquerque section would like to thank to Khandakar for organizing the talk.

Sincerely,

Gilberto

Albuquerque Section Treasurer.=