Women Engineers: Many Paths to a Rewarding Life

Karen Panetta, ’85
Leader of the Nerd Girls

“When you get out in industry, that’s when I appreciated how much I’d learned. My grades were not a 4.0, but I had retained a lot more.”

B.S. in Computer Systems Engineering '85

M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Systems Engineering from Northeastern University.

Currently Associate Professor of Computer and Electrical Engineering at Tufts University.

I am the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers chair of the Women in Engineering committee -- the worldwide director of over 12,500 members on the committee. With that I have the responsibility of directing this organization and creating strategies for developing programs to attract women and young girls into engineering: how to support women in academic programs, help them find careers and deal with life balance issues for women already out there so they can stay in engineering.”

It’s kind of nice to have a say in where we’re going and what technologies we should be looking at, and what we need to do with education.

The current goals are how to break the stereotypes and get young girls to apply for engineering. They don’t know what engineering is and there’s a lack of positive influences in the media about what engineering is. We know these are the barriers, and now it’s about taking action. That’s what Nerd Girls is about.

Nerd Girls is a group of women engineering students who, in addition to studying engineering and working on a solar car project, do everything normal American kids do. They dispel a lot of the stereotypes. They like math and science, but they don’t eat, sleep and breathe engineering in their free time.

We have an Oscar-nominated producer who came out and started shooting the pilot –we’re doing eight episodes of a TV show on engineering – to see the Nerd Girls do engineering, learn about them as engineers, and see how normal they are.

When I was a kid, I always had a tree house and one of my goals in life was to own my own home. I wanted a career where I could support myself, where I didn’t have to depend on anyone -- that’s one of the things that drove me to do engineering.

When I first got to BU, I remember being among thousands. The thing that made the difference was every Friday we’d meet in small groups of 10 with a faculty advisor. You got to know people in the program. I made lifelong friends in there.

I majored in computer engineering, then worked at Digital Equipment corporation. When I got out into industry, that’s when I appreciated how much I’d learned. I knew how to learn, leverage people’s positive attributes, network, work on larger scale projects. Others were used to textbook cases. My grades were not a 4.0 but I had retained a lot more.

I did a master’s and Ph.D, both part time while working –which is unheard of.  Now, I’m an engineering professor [at another university], and I tell my students, “I want you to learn to be a team player -- but I’m a part of your team.” I teach them, they work with me and help me by letting me know what’s coming across.