Women within Lafayette’s engineering program got the chance to learn and network at the WE23 conference held in Los Angeles last week.
“It’s usually a three-day conference,” Grace Brokenshire ‘24, who attended the conference, said. “There’s usually some talks in the morning about professional development, technical talks on different engineering topics … and then in the afternoon, there’s a career fair that’s for collegiate members and professionals who are looking for new jobs.”
Brokenshire is the co-president of Lafayette’s Society of Women Engineers chapter. She said that students are picked to attend each year based on interest in the event and involvement in different engineering activities throughout the year. This year, 10 female students attended the conference.
“I first heard about it last spring,” attendee Emily Mastroly ‘25 said. “I wasn’t really sure at first because I’d have to miss class. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was an opportunity that might not come around again. So once I found out that some friends were also planning to go, I decided to do it.”
In the mornings, the group traveled to the conference together and then broke off to explore the presentations for the engineering disciplines they were interested in.
The panels touched on a range of topics, one of which was moderated by Lafayette alum Brooke Paccione ’21 who now works at the engineering company Kleinfelder. Students were able to network with hundreds of different engineering companies and potentially get interviews later that day in the basement of the conference center.
“I think that it’s important to have these kinds of events to show young women what they can achieve in their near and distant future,” Mastroly said. “I think it’s important to create that space … Having it be primarily women did make it more comfortable. I think it’s also important to see women in roles that are traditionally held by men, especially in engineering disciplines like mechanical engineering. Being in that space I definitely feel pretty inspired.”
In the future, the Society of Women Engineers is planning on coordinating with Paccione to hold events in the spring.
“Having these kinds of events that are specifically geared towards women, it helps support and uplift them in their roles and show that you really can be successful which is I think is really, really important for a woman in engineering at the college level,” Brokenshire said.
