Unfortunately, due to the postponement of four WE Local conferences, many 2020 WE Local award recipients who opted to receive their award at a conference never had the opportunity to be publicly recognized. Therefore, the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) has decided to recognize these individuals and organizations through a series of blog posts that feature the recipient’s achievements—achievements that would have been read aloud as they came to the stage to accept their award and take a photo. WE Local Awards provide additional opportunities to recognize outstanding SWE members, SWE groups and individuals. Here, we are delighted to celebrate the 2020 individual award recipients from our global WE Locals.
Engaged Advocate Award
Anagha Kulkarni, Ph.D. | Pune, India
We are pleased to announce one recipient of the WE Local 2020 Engaged Advocate Award is bestowed upon Anagha Kulkarni, Ph.D. As Professor and Head of Information Technology at Cummins College of Engineering for Women (CCEW), Anagha helps to promote STEM education for women living or studying at CCEW. Dr. Kulkarni is also the Faculty Advisor for the SWE Cummins College of Engineering for Women, Pune, India Affiliate. She has developed several initiatives within the university and has taken on many mentor and leadership roles over the years.
Through Dr. Kulkarni’s efforts, the SWE Cummins College of Engineering for Women, Pune (CCEW) Affiliate was started in 2016. Some of the other founding members include Dr. Karen Ramsey-Idem, Dr. Anuradda Ganesh, and Stueti Gupta. Along with Anagha Kulkarni, these dignitaries have played a main role in building affiliate membership and continuously support these members as they grow in their technology and engineering careers. Every year the affiliate hosts events that are organized and categorized under three categories:
- Leadership (Networking and Professional Development)
- Engineering
- Outreach (Community Service)
Since the start in 2016, Anagha has assisted the affiliate in organizing a variety of programs for students and staff members within Cummins College of Engineering for Women, Pune. The staff members have benefited from several events such as, ‘Reversal of Brain Ageing’, ‘Women’s Health After 40’ and several other relevant topics. While student events are geared towards career advice, the affiliate holds mentoring events where students are trained to conduct workshops for underprivileged kids.
Students with diverse interests form panels, which then guide the program content ensuring a variety of programs are conducted every year. Some of the events Dr. Kulkarni has assisted in conducting can be seen below.
Career Day, January 2017
Community Service in 2018
Poster Exhibition, February 2019
Student Outreach Program, October 2019
Congratulations, Anagha Kulkarni, Ph.D!
Rising Star Award
Samruddhi Mangrulkar | Pune, India
We are pleased to announce one recipient of the WE Local 2020 Rising Star Award is bestowed upon Samruddhi Mangrulkar. As a Civil Engineering student at MIT World Peace University in Pune, India, Samruddhi contributes to SWE, the engineering community and her campus through various program involvement, volunteering and leadership roles. She is a Founding member and President of SWE MIT-WPU Affiliate and is dedicated to building relationships among other college affiliates.
Samruddhi has consistently worked and has been taking efforts for the betterment of not only the university but also the Society. She indeed is a leader who always stretches her limits, expands her abilities, and always is imbibing values within her team that help them excel in life. Her team members are extremely satisfied by her confidence in them, her immense involvement, utter sincerity, and the humbleness that Samruddhi possesses. Samruddhi Mangrulkar says, “mutual support focuses on creating networks both personally and professionally and the sign of a true leader is to embrace the leader within others.” She is very thankful to SWE for helping her professionalism break boundaries.
Congratulations, Samruddhi Mangrulkar!
Guiding Star Award
Haley J. Barnes | Dallas, Texas (accepting award in Europe)
We are pleased to announce one recipient of the WE Local 2020 Guiding Star Award is bestowed upon Haley J. Barnes. As a graduate student at the University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC), Haley leverages her UTHSC network and other engineering societies to support the execution and implementation of successful fundraising campaign. She currently serves as the FY20 Fundraising Chair for the Dallas SWE section.
As a leader in the Graduate SWE Community, one of Haley’s goals was to increase the community’s presence in the global community. Working with their WE Local Programming Coordinator, Kazi Tasneem, GradSWE was able to communicate with the planning board of WE Local Europe. This connection allowed Haley and the GradSWE community the opportunity to work with graduate students all across Europe. She was very sad this great event was postponed, but Haley is excited to meet international graduate student members in person next May! Additionally, as a member of the Leadership Coaching Committee (LCC), Haley’s would have been the LCC’s first WE Local award winner at a non-United States conference. Haley’s goal is to be able to represent both the Graduate SWE Community and the Leadership Coaching Committee at WE Local Europe next year. It is a dream of hers to become a consulting clinician and engineer to the World Health Organization and have an adjunct faculty position at Oxford University. From these goals, Haley hopes to gain a work visa to the United Kingdom and European Union.
Haley is grateful for her SWEsters in the Graduate SWE Community and in the Dallas SWE Professional Section. Haley joined the Society in 2013 when she joined the University of North Texas collegiate section. SWE is Haley’s go-to place for all things leadership and professional development, and she is extremely grateful to the Society for providing her a family and network of inspiring women engineers.
