From celebrating a milestone 75th anniversary to receiving multiple recognitions for content and programs, 2025 was a thrilling year for the Society of Women Engineers (SWE).
Here are some of SWE’s most memorable highlights of 2025, as we continue championing women and girls in STEM across the globe.
SWE’s 75th Celebration
As part of the Society’s year-long celebration for our 75th anniversary, SWE held an exciting SWE’s Founders Day event on May 6 at The Cooper Union in New York City, the college that hosted SWE’s founding meeting. The festivities featured astronaut Kellie Gerardi as keynote speaker.
The 75th anniversary page on the website highlights the Society’s legacy of advocacy and gender equality, a series of semi-monthly videos featuring SWE members past and present, a special traveling exhibit at select events through the year, exclusive commemorative merchandise with sales proceeds contributing to the SWE Legacy Endowed Scholarship, and so much more.
SWE Membership
SWE reached record-breaking member numbers, with more than 50,000 members worldwide. SWE’s Mentor Network continues to grow with more than 1,500 new mentors or mentees added to the network during FY25. Since its inception, SWE’s Mentor Network has facilitated more than 10,000 unique introductions.
The Society’s continued focus on growing our footprint at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) resulted in the addition of eight new affiliates at MSIs, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions.
Overall, SWE grew by six new U.S. sections, 10 new affiliates in the U.S., and 23 new global affiliates, including Belgium, Cameroon, France, and Iraq.
Scholarships
SWE distributed more than 330 scholarships valued at more than $1.6 million. Over 16,000 applications were started, and more than 4,500 applications were completed — marking a new scholarship application record. What’s more, 95% of eligible collegiate sections had at least one scholarship applicant.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEI&B)
SWE released its fourth DEI&B report, SWE’s Legacy of Cultivating Belonging, highlighting the Society’s role in championing equity, our 75-year legacy of recognition and inclusion, and our commitment to empowering women engineers through mentorship, advocacy, leadership, and community.
SWE Magazine and Diverse: A SWE Podcast
In 2025, SWE Magazine received nine prestigious media awards: one FOLIO: Ozzy award, one FOLIO: Eddie award, one Grand Award and one Award of Excellence from APEX, one Azbee Award of Excellence, two gold-level awards and one honorable mention from TABPI, and an APEX Award of Excellence for the newly redesigned SWE Magazine website at magazine.swe.org. Plus, Diverse: a SWE podcast received two prestigious media awards: a FOLIO: Eddie award and an APEX Award of Excellence. Enjoy some of the top stories of the year with this roundup of the Society’s most popular content of 2025.
Awards and Recognition
The SWE Awards Program honored 20 APEX and 165 ASCENT awardees. The SWE Recognition Program named 348 total recipients, 204 of which are Patent Recognition recipients.
Global Programs
SWE welcomed the largest cohort of global ambassadors to date — 318 SWE leaders representing more than 30 countries. SWE’s Global Ambassador Program was also recognized with a 2025 Power of Associations Gold Award by the American Society of Association Executives. Plus, the Society hosted nine virtual networking sessions in four different languages.
Strategic Partnerships
In FY25, 160 organizations invested in their employees’ growth by partnering with SWE to offer individual memberships that empower STEM professionals around the world to engage in impactful leadership programs, meaningful career development, and a supportive global community.
SWE also obtained $2.62 million in grants to support the Society’s programs and initiatives. SWE delivered 76 print and digital brand and advertising partner campaigns, an 81% increase over FY24, underscoring our shared commitment to elevating women in engineering through strategic visibility and engagement.
Learning Programs
SWE aligned the structures of the Advance Learning Center (ALC) and WE Annual Call for Participation (CFP) with its six Leadership Competency Model (LCM) competency categories. The project included:
- Revising the WE Annual CFP Guidelines to include the new LCM competency category-based tracks
- Updating keywords that submitters choose when entering their proposal to capture more specific data to facilitate the identification of trends in submission topics
- Recategorizing our catalog of over 180 courses to align with the LCM
- Redesigning and reorganizing the ALC to make the site more easily navigable
SWE also introduced a new “Countdown to Conference” webinar series, featuring sessions identified through the WE25 CFP process. The intent behind the series was to provide prospective conference attendees with focused learning to prepare for and enhance their conference experience. The three-session series garnered 1,286 registrations. Lastly, SWE launched the SWE Global Ambassador Hub on the ALC, which includes an interactive e-learning orientation, as well as a collection of ambassador resources.
SWENext
SWE invited students from historically under-resourced areas to Invent It. Build It., a hands-on event at WE25 in New Orleans that aims to change the image of “What an Engineer Looks Like” and inspire the next generation of STEM stars. The Society also hosted eight sessions of the SWENext High School Leadership Academy (SHLA).
SWE launched a new SWENext Club directory and map with 176 active SWENext Clubs, adding more than 50 new clubs. Additionally, the SWENext Influencer leadership cohort had its highest number of applicants, with 27 selected to participate in the program.
SWE Events
Nearly 14,000 attended WE25 in-person in New Orleans with 324 organizations participating in the WE25 Career Fair. SWE expanded its international presence this year by introducing two additional WE Local conferences — in Pune, India, and Campinas, Brazil — for a total of seven WE Local events across four continents. These new locations strengthen SWE’s commitment to global inclusion and accessibility. WE Local Campinas marked SWE’s first HQ lead event in Latin America and in another language.
