Meet Our Women Engineering Students

Andrea Peng
Electrical Engineering
Clarissa Shephard
Biomedical Engineering
Rhea Chaudhry
Industrial & Systems Engineering
Emma Bones
Civil Engineering
Andrea Peng
Electrical Engineering

Where are you from and why did you choose Georgia Tech?

I'm originally from California and have spent a majority of my life there, but I did move around a lot, especially overseas to Hong Kong, Taipei, and Shanghai. I chose Georgia Tech because I had taken a gap year after high school graduation, just moved again with my parents to Georgia, and staying within the state was really the most ideal situation for me at the time. Georgia Tech was not only a great school, but also the perfect distance from home. On top of that, I loved the campus as soon as I visited and overall felt like a perfect fit.

Why did you choose your major?

I originally started as Undeclared Engineering, and in my first year, I took COE1000, which introduced a different engineering major every week. I ended up stuck between Mechanical and Electrical, but I felt a stronger pull and more interest for Electrical Engineering.

What are you working on?

I am currently a research student under the Vertically Integrated Program's project Aquabots. I'm learning about maritime robotics and working closely on the electrical side of an underwater vehicle. More recently, my group has been focusing on the power board, sensors, and power.

I'm extremely involved in Omega Phi Alpha, the national service sorority, on campus. Through this organization, community service has grown to be a huge part of my life, and I've had the amazing opportunity to have served as Vice President and Alumnae Liaison in the past couple years. I am also involved in SWE and IEEE.

What do you like best about GT?

I think the opportunities at Georgia Tech for studying abroad, research, leadership, and co-ops/internships are amazing as well as the resources available for students. For every single thing you're interested in, Georgia Tech more than likely has an option for it or someone you can talk to about your interest. The environment is also pretty incredible with the amount of diversity and passion that encompasses the faculty, staff, and students.

What do you hope to do in the future?

As of right now, I am extremely interested in electrical energy and power, and hope to work in that industry after graduating as energy is such a key part in our lives and everyone needs and utilizes it. If that doesn't pan out, there are so many areas and opportunities out there for my major that I'm truly open to learning about them all!

Clarissa Shephard
Biomedical Engineering

Where are you from and why did you choose Georgia Tech?

I was born and raised in Apex, North Carolina. I attended North Carolina State University as an undergrad and received my degree in Biomedical Engineering with a concentration in bioinstrumentation (and a minor in Spanish!). When deciding on a graduate program, Georgia Tech stood out as the ideal choice! Not only is the graduate program in biomedical engineering one of the highest ranked programs in the nation, but the environment at Tech is fantastic.

Why did you choose your major?

I chose biomedical engineering as my undergraduate major when I was in my second year of college because I enjoyed working at the intersection of medicine and engineering. Within biomedical engineering, I am especially interested in neuro-engineering because of the complex nature of the brain that gives rise to incredible capabilities.

What are you working on?

My research in the NeuroLab focuses on sensory neural coding. To explain this, imagine a time when you reached into your purse searching for your cell phone. The mechanical deformations experienced by your skin, as it moved across the phone surface, where converted into sequences of action potentials that traveled from the mechanoreceptors in your skin to your brain and allowed you to perceive this object as your phone. I am attempting to understand how characteristics of a given stimulus are encoded in the somatsosensory pathway and ultimately give rise to perception. Although my research focuses on somatosensation specifically, the transduction of physical properties into perceptions is common to all sensory modalities.

What do you like best about GT?

The thing I like best about Georgia Tech is the atmosphere. The students are driven and enthusiastic about their work. The faculty are incredibly approachable and motivating. This combination leads to innovative research environments that are able to perform cutting edge research.

What do you hope to do in the future?

That's an excellent question! I'll have to get back to you on that one...

Rhea Chaudhry
Industrial & Systems Engineering

Where are you from and why did you choose Georgia Tech?

I am originally from Alpharetta, Georgia, not too far from the Atlanta campus. I decided Georgia Tech was the place for me fairly early on. In fact, after coming on a school tour with my 5th grade class, I knew I belonged here!

Why did you choose your major?

I am an Industrial & Systems Engineering major. I chose this particular major because I am interested in Operations Research and Statistics and would like to integrate the two for a career in the Systems Engineering/Aerospace field.

What are you working on?

I work during the summer as a Systems Engineering intern at Booz Allen Hamilton, a technical consulting firm located in Washington, D.C. I get to interact with people I look up to on a daily basis. It is a truly humbling experience and I am very thankful for the opportunity.  In addition to earning my degree in Industrial & Systems Engineering, I am also working towards earning a minor in French and would like to eventually study abroad. Outside of academics, I serve as the Director of Recruitment for TEAM Buzz. I am a member of a few on-campus clubs and am actively involved in the Greek community as well.

What do you like best about GT?

My favorite part about Georgia Tech is the amount of resources available for our success.  Whether it is free 1-on-1 tutoring sessions, extra TA hours, or study groups, someone on campus is always willing to help! The sense of community is what I love the most.

What do you hope to do in the future?

In the future, I hope to earn a Masters in Systems Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration after working for a few years. I also have a passion for French art and culture, and would ultimately like to study abroad or work in Paris, France.

 

Emma Bones
Civil Engineering

Why Georgia Tech?

I am originally from Chicago, but my family moved to Memphis shortly before I graduated from high school. Since I had so many connections to the Midwest, I had always pictured myself attending a Big 10 engineering school, such as the University of Illinois or Purdue. I applied and was accepted to those institutions as well as Georgia Tech. However as I began to visit Georgia Tech's campus, my first choice school quickly became Tech. It has a beautiful campus, endless opportunities for an engineer, and most importantly, the people (faculty, staff, and students) made me feel at home. My favorite words of wisdom are always to apply to schools based on rankings but to decide on a school based on whether it feels like home. To me, Georgia Tech felt like the perfect home.

Why did you choose your major?

I am currently a graduate student at Georgia Tech pursuing a Masters in Civil Engineering, but I also attended Tech for my undergraduate degree in Environmental Engineering. I always knew that I wanted to be an engineer because as an engineer I can change the world in a way no one else can. I can be creative, design solutions, an in the end, find solutions that can better people's lives around the world. (What other career allows you to do that on a daily basis?!) For me, the hard part was deciding which type of engineering interested me. I have always loved water, and as I was touring colleges, I realized that I wanted that to be my focus throughout my education. Therefore, Environmental Engineering became the easy choice for me. In graduate school, I am still pursuing my interest in water, but through a slightly different focus of water resources in Civil Engineering. I like to joke that, more than anything, I am a Water Engineer!

What are you working on?

Graduate school has a very heavy focus on research, and I am enjoying jumping into my topics of research with all my effort. My most exciting research project took me to Nicaragua last summer to test water point mapping technologies. I spent two weeks touring the country with a local non-profit, testing the water quality at community wells, and recording the data to create a comprehensive picture of the current state of water points in Nicaragua. The hope is that this research can be used to provide more reliable water to communities in developing countries. This research has generated much interest in the international aid sector, and my research has been accepted in conferences as far away as Ethiopia. 

During my undergraduate career, I also had the great opportunity to participate in research in the area of sustainable transportation planning, and I recently received the good news that that research will be published shortly in a research journal. Additionally during my undergraduate career, I was able to participate in two internships, one with the Army Corps of Engineers and one with Black&Veatch. I also traveled abroad multiple times to places such as Mexico, Spain, and Ghana. While on campus, I became very involved with community service starting my freshman year, and continued that involvement through my senior year. My volunteer experiences have been extremely rewarding and have connected me with some incredible friends at Georgia Tech and in the community. 

Needless to say, if you have a desire to do something at Georgia Tech, you will be able to accomplish it! My time at Tech has been nothing short of incredible, and I am very thankful for all of the opportunities that have been available to me.

What do you like best about GT?

The people are without a doubt the best thing about Georgia Tech. My courses here have been rigorous - that's what makes Tech one of the best, but my friends got me through every challenge with a big smile on my face. The support offered to me by my professors has allowed me to take part in some incredible research and to travel to some amazing places. My four years of undergraduate flew by, and I know that I will miss the people at Tech the most. I am constantly encouraged and inspired by those around me, and I feel very fortunate to have studied in such a supportive environment for my college career.

What do you hope to do in the future?

Currently, I am looking forward to graduating in December 2013 and securing a position within industry. I would very much like to find a job where I can dive into my career, gain a lot of experience, and actively contribute to my company. I have very much enjoyed the opportunity to purely learn for the past five years, but I am ready to apply and test myself in a career outside of university walls. I'm ready to create solutions to the world's problems!