Each year General Motors sponsors the Women in STEM Award which was presented at this year’s Awards Ceremony. This award honors women across many STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines who demonstrate outstanding technical excellence both within their university academic programs and most notably, through the EcoCAR program. This year, judges heard from 16 outstanding candidates whose accomplishments demonstrated highly developed technical skills and commitment to encouraging other women to pursue and succeed in engineering and other STEM fields.
This year, we had a tie for the first-place position between two excellent candidates, Andrea Howison from Embry-Riddle and Madeline Gilmer from the University of Alabama.
Andrea has been able to develop a strong engineering skillset due to the application of learnings from coursework, her experience with Simulink and MathWorks, and her internships with Ford and Argonne National Lab. As the PCM Swimlane lead she is responsible for the team’s technical deliverables and fostered a positive and conducive culture for an all-female controls team. She has led various recruiting efforts to promote opportunities for female students in engineering as well as opportunities in the EcoCAR team. These experiences have helped her become more knowledgeable about vehicles, effectively troubleshoot, and solve problems. Looking into the future, Andrea wants to pursue opportunities within the auto-controller domain with emphasis in validation and testing.
Madeline completed her technical undergrad and developed strong project management and leadership skills while working with design/build contractors. She emphasized the need for creating buy-in and engagement within her team environment and highlighted how that impacted women’s involvement in a collaborative environment. She has helped grow women involvement in EcoCAR on her campus, and just recently established a Women of EcoCAR group to further growth.
Both winners showed their passion within and outside of EcoCAR, and they showed us the broad impact that women can have within different areas of the STEM field.
The winners of this year’s General Motors Women in STEM Award, will receive a trophy and a check for $500 each.
Congratulations to our winners, the General Motors Women in STEM Rookie of the Year Sophy Li from the University of Waterloo, and to each of the candidates below:
- Andrea Howison from Embry-Riddle
- Giovanna Camacho from Embry-Riddle
- Shivani Patel from Embry-Riddle
- Jaime Harmon from Embry-Riddle
- Emily Parcell from Embry-Riddle
- Anna Cobb from the Georgia Tech
- Aya Aboughanem from the McMaster University
- Colleen Jenkins from McMaster University
- Morgan Cox from Mississippi State University
- Cierra Garrett from Mississippi State University
- Madeline Gilmer from University of Alabama
- Jina Duangtavanh from University of Washington
- Bailey Deck from University of Washington
- Livia Anderson from University of Washington
- Sophy Li from University of Waterloo
- Candy Li from Virginia Tech
