[Updated version with corrected list of names.]
Dear Colleagues,
Earlier this month, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering very successfully held our second Rising Stars Workshop, a two-day event that forms a cohort of the 20 top women in civil and environmental engineering and related disciplines. Through a series of faculty panels, research presentations and networking sessions, the participants discussed their personal and academic stories and received individualized advice about their interests and concerns from current MIT faculty.
We have since received wonderful feedback from a number of participants lauding the personal insight and advice of faculty about the benefits and challenges of the faculty career and the interview process.
This unique workshop also offered us the opportunity to hear about research topics and get to know the upcoming distinguished scholars and their research projects. The event has also proven useful in the context of our upcoming faculty search. Following the 2015 Rising Stars Workshop, one participant, Tal Cohen, interviewed for our faculty search. She joined the MIT CEE department in fall 2016, and participated in a faculty panel for the recent workshop.
This year, we were pleased to welcome the following distinguished women to MIT:
· Idil Akin, University of Wisconsin, Madison
· Negin Alemazkoor, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne
· Ilke Bakir, Georgia Tech
· Olivia Clifton, Columbia University
· Trilce Encarnacion, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institution
· Emily Garner, Virginia Tech
· Jessica Grembi, Stanford University
· Thushara Gunda, Vanderbilt University
· Grace Han, MIT
· Karina Hermawan, University of California, Irvine
· Natalie Hull, Colorado University, Boulder
· Yingjun Liu, University of California, Berkeley
· Maider Llaguno-Munixta, Princeton University
· Negar Mehr, University of California, Berkeley
· Neda Mohammadi, Georgia Tech
· Shilpa Raja, MIT
· Julia Roberts, University of Texas, Austin
· Antonia Sebastian, TU Delft
· Stephanie Spahr, Stanford University
· Yufen Zhou, Colorado State University
It was a pleasure to meet these women and to hear about their research. Congratulations to all of them for their great achievements, and best wishes for their future!
I invite you to browse this year's program, featuring the participants' biographies, a list of participating faculty, and the agenda.
Sincerely,
Markus Buehler
McAfee Professor of Engineering
Department Head, MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering