The Princeton student chapter of the Society of Women in Engineering (SWE) recently held its annual high school colloquium aimed at educating young women about careers in engineering.

"We wanted to show them that you can do a lot of different things with an engineering degree," said SWE President Ilka Netravali '03.

SWE invited two female engineers to speak: Virginia Bonker, a computer science major, who is now a venture capitalist; and Christine Podilchuk, who is a researcher at Bell Labs.

Ms. Bonker is chief executive officer of Bluerock Capital Firm, which helps early-stage entrepreneurs acquire funding and get established in business.

Although she is not programming code anymore, Ms. Bonker's computer science education factors into her work regularly, she said. Her background makes it possible for her to understand and assess the complex inventions and technical services she is being asked to support. It also helps her guide her clients in their business decisions.

"My job is to know the right questions to ask, in order to lead to the right decisions," said Ms. Bonker.

Ms. Bonker said that her computer science education gave her "credibility," which she particularly needed early in her career, when she worked on Wall Street. She said that working environments are better for women now than they were when she was graduating high school.

Dr. Podilchuk used her engineering education to tread a path more in step with traditional engineering graduates. She is a researcher in the Multimedia Signal Processing Lab at Bell Labs, where she studies compression, transmission, face recognition, digital watermarking, and other aspects of video.

Dr. Podilchuk said that although many of her colleagues are male, that has not hindered her work. To make the point that scientists do not have to look a certain way, she showed photos of several famous inventors, including the patent holder '40s film star Heddy Lamaar.

She also said that many opportunities are available for women now, citing Lucent's fellowship for women seeking graduate degrees in the sciences.

Following the keynote speakers was a student panel and a group activity. Members of the student panel described the numerous possibilities that are available for engineering students at Princeton, and representatives from the departments described their course work and why they each chose their particular major.

The SEAS undergraduate student population is 30 percent women, almost double the national average (17 percent) of women studying engineering.

Graduate studentXiaoqiangMais the firstelectrical engineering student toreceive a highly competitiveand prestigious Microsoft Fellowship.

He will have the opportunityto be a Microsoft Fellow for thenext two years. Xiaoqiang wasselected based on the quality ofhis proposed thesis research. Hehas been working with ProfessorsHisashi Kobayashiand Stuart Schwartz.

Xiaoqiang's research hasbeen supported, in part, by agrant from Mitsubishi ElectricResearch Labs, in Murray Hill,N.J., as well as grants from theNational Science Foundation,and the New Jersey Center forWireless Telecommunications.Xiaoqiang has been workingon novel algorithms for signalrecovery and channel estimationof orthogonal frequencydivision multiplexed (OFDM)signals, which will be used inthe next generation of wirelesscommunications.

He has already presentedand submitted several conferencepapers with ProfessorsKobayashi and Schwartz and ispreparing an invention disclosurewith researchers from MitsubishiElectric Research Labs.

Two outstanding students received honorific fellowships from Princeton University's Graduate School.

Silvia Ferrari Krishnan Sankaranarayanan Photo by Frank Wojciechowski

Silvia Ferrari won a Wallace Memorial Fellowship in Engineering, and Krishnan Sankaranarayanan received a George Van Ness Lothrop Fellowship in Engineering.

Silvia Ferrari is from Modena, Italy, and is studying mechanical and aerospace engineering under the direction of Professor Robert Stengel *65 *66 *68. She graduated summa cum laude from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1997, after receiving a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering.

Silvia came to Princeton in 1997, where she is now investigating adaptive control of aircraft and developing alternative learning techniques for artificial neural networks.

Her recent awards include the 2000 and 2001 Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship Award, the 2001 American Astronautical Society Donald K. "Deke" Slayton Memorial Scholarship, and the 2001 American Society of Mechanical Engineers Graduate Teaching Fellowship.

In her spare time, Silvia enjoys skiing, Windsurfing®, jogging, traveling, and painting.

The Wallace Memorial Fellowship in Engineering was founded in 1930 by the bequest of Bonnie Wallace LeClear, and reconstituted in 1963 as one of the highest awards conferrable in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Krishnan received his undergraduate degree and a master's degree in chemical engineering from Delft University of Technology, in his home country of the Netherlands. He came to the United States after graduating from Delft in 1997.

At Princeton, Krishnan is pursuing his Ph.D. degree in chemical engineering, researching gas-liquid multiphase flow.

Outside school, Krishnan keeps busy playing the piano, cooking, and working out in the gym.

The George Van Ness Lothrop Fellowship in Engineering was founded in 1970 by a bequest of Marion Lewis Lothrop, widow of George B. Lothrop, A.B. 1908 and E.E. 1910. This fellowship is one of the highest awards conferrable in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and provides a stipend plus full tuition.

The fall 2001 recipients of the John Marshall II Memorial Prize and the Morgan W. McKinzie '93 Senior Thesis Fund Prize in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering are:

John Marshall II Memorial Prize
First place: Mary Dunlop- "Analysis of a Realistic Sailboat Hull Using Computational Fluid Dynamics." Second place: Christopher Schneider -"Mechanical Prosthetic Heart Valve Design." Third place: Sherwood Forlee-"Electroactive Polymer: Its Potential as Artificial Muscle." Honorable mention: Stephen Ahnert, Erik de Brun, and Meghann Lomas-"Auton-omous Pocket-Billiards Robot."

Morgan W. McKinzie '93 Senior Thesis Fund Prize
First place: Flavio Poehlmann-Martins and Probal Mitra (ELE)-"Modern Equipment General Aviation Airplane." Second place: Kaijen Hsiao- "A Two-Legged, Dynamic Hopping Kangaroo Robot." Third place: Allison Fournier and James Doyle- "Theoretical and Experimental Modeling of a Shape Varying Geometry." Honorable mention: Marsha Van Dalen and Sasha Levyx-"The Effects of Surface Features on Cell Adhesion to Bioglass 45S5."

These prizes are awarded to members of the senior class based on independent research work or senior thesis proposals. The prizes provide financial support for independent research work. Funds may be used for the purchase of equipment, instrumentation, and other expenses associated with the conduct of research.