The “Her Stories: Adventures in STEM” blog series is a collection of stories about 20 women in science and engineering fields, written by members of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Pre-College Working Group.
These inspiring women have experienced a variety of life experiences and career paths, and these stories and accompanying artwork help to capture the vast diversity of our featured scientists and engineers.
We hope this series will show you how exciting engineering and science can be and help you realize that anyone can choose to become a scientist or an engineer.
Story by Hilary Fiorentino
Maria Palamara’s earliest memory was a clue to what passions she would pursue in adulthood. As a child, Maria was given a carriage for her baby doll. Instead of buckling her doll into the carriage and taking it for a ride, she set out on a different adventure and immediately began taking it apart to see how the contraption worked. Maria was a budding engineer in the making!
Maria grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where her father was an ironworker for the New York Sanitation Department. Her mother worked in banking before pivoting to a stay-at-home mom once their family started growing. Neither of her parents had gone to college; however, they were invested in their children’s higher education.
Maria grew up with two brothers and one sister, and her parents encouraged curiosity and science and math learning opportunities. Her older brother went to college for physics, and her other brother followed in Maria’s footsteps for engineering.
Growing up, Maria oftentimes felt like she did not fit in with her fellow classmates. However, her intelligence, excellent grades, and good relationships with her teachers led to her receiving a scholarship to attend an all-girls high school in Manhattan, New York, which helped shape her academic future.
At her new school, Dominican Academy, life started to change for Maria. She went from being shy and quiet to suddenly being involved with her school choir, sports teams, and theater. Maria even took on a lead role for her theater’s stage crew in the production of Peter Pan.
Here is where she learned how engineering and creativity intersect. Maria was surprised at how much engineering was involved in theater, such as making the actors fly! Working on hard challenges in this creative space made her time in theater one of her favorite memories.
In the classroom, Maria discovered that physics was her favorite subject, and she also became student council president. Over time, she grew more assertive and confident, breaking out of her shell and growing her leadership skills through these opportunities.
When it came time for college, Maria decided on The Cooper Union for engineering because it was a tuition-free opportunity to continue her education. Her initial step into the engineering curriculum was an introduction to engineering class, and her class project was to help an Indigenous group of people in a place with few resources to irrigate their fields and get water to their animals. Through this exercise, she realized that engineering was a way to help people and make a difference in their lives.
Maria initially chose to pursue chemical engineering as her major. After some bad experiences in her chemical engineering lab, including breaking some beakers, she realized it was not for her. She switched to mechanical engineering and found it was a much better fit. Maria enjoyed her classes and learned that mechanical engineering could be used in many applications.
There were few women in her engineering classes during her time in college in the 1970s, and this sometimes made it difficult for Maria to navigate academics. Sometimes male professors saw Maria and other women as taking the spots of men, as if men deserved to attend college more. Despite this bias, Maria kept her head held high and continued to work hard, earn good grades, and even graduate with academic honors.
Maria’s first job out of college was with Bell Labs working on a light-emitting diode (LED). Despite her initial hesitation, Maria wound up spending 31 years with Bell Labs and worked on numerous projects, such as the first fully electronic key system with LED switch buttons and multiple-line telephones. Bell Labs even sponsored her to pursue a master’s degree in fluid mechanics and heat transfer at Columbia University.
After she spent time as a physical designer, she pivoted to project management to help technical teams work with each other and the factory. Maria also tried systems engineering which taught her about developing requirements for the products that other teams would build.
Systems engineering requires big-picture thinking and the ability to understand the whole life cycle of the product, from the initial product idea to recycling after its use. These skills and systems thinking translated well into the business world when she became a product manager.
She pivoted to this role once she decided to become a mom and wanted something new. After working in marketing and traveling extensively, Maria decided to become a people manager of a forward-looking technology team.
Maria led a team that developed a GPS-assisted technology for cell phones that allows the user to get a location of a cellular signal from a phone calling 911 for help. Maria earned 12 patents related to location and other new technologies through her work on this team.
After this work, her career continued for many years. She worked in public safety telecommunications, 4G technology, and private spectrum, which designates portions of communication frequencies to companies and is also used by mobile phones, Bluetooth, and FM radio. Before retiring from engineering, Maria’s last role in the telecommunications world was with Verizon working on cellular roaming and 5G solutions.
In addition to Maria’s technical pursuits, throughout her career she engaged in leadership classes and mentored her coworkers, helping them through career changes. Being an engineer means Maria is a problem solver. Maria had to learn how to work with unique people and personalities, navigate being a woman in a male-dominated field, and understand how systems work together.
Being a systems engineer allowed her to think of a person as an individual living within a larger societal system. Maria can better visualize and understand a person and how they are affected by their home life, relationships, and career.
This skill inspired her to pursue a new career in retirement: career and mental health counseling. Maria was always passionate about helping people, and this new career allowed her to utilize her engineering talent in a different way. She was interested in learning what makes people happy and what goals they want to pursue in their life. Maria helps patients with their mental health, including anxiety and depression, which are sometimes brought on through stress in a career.
Maria’s personal and professional life has been filled with many twists and turns, but she is grateful for every moment. Maria’s career is marked by her persistence, a positive attitude, and a love of learning. In the moments where her career got tough, whether fighting to earn respect as a woman in the field or pivoting to a new technical area, she continued to advocate for herself and find a support system around her.
Maria believes it is important to have fun and find people that make you laugh and allow them to cheer you on through troublesome times. She believes a key component to her success has been her curiosity and her desire for continuous learning.
Engineering is all about learning and problem-solving, and a love of learning will create an exciting path that opens up endless possibilities — from theater, to lightbulbs, to GPS, or even to counseling!
The “Her Stories: Adventures in STEM” series is a collection of stories about 20 women in science and engineering fields, written by members of the SWE Pre-College Working Group. Dive into the rest of the series here!
Know a precollege kid interested in STEM? Join SWENext, the Society’s free program that allows students ages 5 through 18 to join the SWE engineering and technology community.
SWENexters enjoy numerous opportunities throughout the year to learn, network, and connect with peers, role models, and industry professionals. Plus, this diverse, welcoming, precollege STEM community provides a safe place where kids can feel seen, heard, and validated. SWENext is open to all genders.
