9th Annual Young Women's Engineering Symposium

  • Posted December 15, 2022
9th Annual Young Women's Engineering Symposium

by Ruth Liu ’23 and Myiesha Shaikh ’23

Last week, seniors Myiesha ’23 and Ruth ’23 hosted the 9th annual Young Women’s Engineering Symposium (YWES) on the Notre Dame campus with the goal of providing high school students with an opportunity to explore engineering and STEM careers through the experiences of local professionals.

This year’s YWES marked nearly a decade of bringing STEM professionals and high school students together from schools across the Bay Area. 

The annual symposium showcased four talented and inspirational female speakers: 

  • Anita Gupta, the associate principal at Watry Design, has a background in parking structure, structural engineering and sustainability. Watry’s clients have included Apple and the Mineta San Jose International Airport.
  • Shashi Sastry, the principal product manager at Oracle, has more than 20 years of experience in the computer networking industry and currently specializes in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
  • Crystal Knodel, the director of hardware engineering at Cala Health, has experience working on Apple AirPods. She holds a degree from Northeastern University and a certificate from Harvard University.
  • Annie Brantigan is a systems engineer with Cala Health. She holds a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford and focuses on developing non-invasive neuromodulation therapies for chronic diseases.

The keynote speaker was Lori Kahn, a systems engineering manager at Lockheed Martin and a member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). Her presentation included an initiative by the Society, SWENext, which encourages young women to get involved in engineering through access to their extensive SWE network and other valuable career resources. 

Each presenter spoke about topics ranging from professional career advice and insight into specific engineering careers, to their experiences of discrimination in the workplace. Riya ’25 reflected on her experience saying, “YWES was an amazing opportunity to hear from women in a variety of different engineering fields and network with professionals. I had an amazing time hearing from all of them, and it really inspired me to explore fields of engineering that I hadn't considered before.” Angelina ’23 shared her experience hearing from the presenters: “Their advice and honesty about the doubts and obstacles they’ve faced along their career path helped me envision how I could fit into a STEM career.” Miriam ’25 also noted that, “As someone who wants to go into engineering, this event was really helpful to me and I was able to take away valuable information to help me pursue STEM in the future.” Anita Gupta, one of the speakers at the event, shared her gratitude for having the opportunity to participate at YWES: “I loved meeting and connecting with such a bright group of students!” 

The Young Women’s Engineering Symposium has become a key event to inspire future engineers. We would like to thank all the presenters for taking time to share their experiences and valuable advice with us.