In the News

This fall, MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering will host the first-ever Rising Stars in Mechanical Engineering Workshop. The program is modeled after the successful Rising Stars Workshop for electrical engineering and computer science. Thirty-four of the brightest women graduate students, post-docs, and early-career researchers in mechanical engineering have been chosen to participate in the workshop.

“We are delighted to be hosting the first-ever Rising Stars in Mechanical Engineering Workshop,” says Evelyn Wang, Gail E. Kendall Professor, department head for mechanical engineering, and workshop co-chair. “Providing young women with professional development opportunities and more information about the avenues available to them in academia is instrumental in fixing the ‘leaky pipeline’ in STEM.”

The women participating in the workshop will engage in a number of career-building activities and attend a variety of panels about how to succeed in academia. They will also have an opportunity to network with one another and speak with mentors about their career trajectories.

“One of the aspects of the workshop I’m most excited about is the opportunity these women will have to network and connect with one another,” adds Maria Yang, associate professor of mechanical engineering and co-chair of the workshop. “Participants will be able to connect with women at similar stages in their careers who might be facing some of the same challenges.”

The workshop will take place October 25-26, 2018 at MIT’s campus in Cambridge, MA. Future Rising Stars in Mechanical Engineering Workshops in subsequent years will be hosted by Stanford’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and University of California, Berkeley’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

To learn more about the Rising Stars Workshop, visit http://risingstarsme.mit.edu/.