What I Do I develop cellular network services for use in the aviation industry, with a special focus on drones. This is a new area, so there is a lot of work to be done! When you think about cars on roads today you imagine streets with markings, signs and a set of rules which has been established, socialized and regulated. Along with this is an entire ecosystem of technologies which support safe terrestrial transportation. When you go up into the sky, this does not exist for small drone systems (such as those which will do home delivery), or more advanced aircraft like passenger carrying Air Taxi’s. That’s a lot of work to do! That’s what we work on today, and these are the fundamental technologies that lay the foundation for this infrastructure to be built.
Why Engineering? I never actually knew what engineers were or exactly what they did, and when I decided to go back to school I had never heard of an electrical engineer! What I did know is what I wanted to do. In my career at the time, I was spending a lot of time sitting with small businesses and learning about their goals, challenges, and the problems they wanted to solve to grow or just make their business run better. Together we would identify technologies which could help them accomplish this. These were technologies I knew existed however, when we attempted to find products for small businesses (<250 employees) it proved to be a big challenge. I saw opportunity to take the time to learn how to make things in a world where things weren't made yet. Today, we call this IoT, but this terminology did not exist when I decided that I wanted to make these things. (This was also before the iPhone and Apps were a big thing). So I went to a local University and talked to a counsellor and asked what type of profession makes the things I was describing, and he enthusiastically said "You need an Electrical Engineering degree." So, I signed up!
School Days I went to Washington State University at Vancouver and received an Electrical Engineering degree. Here, I was one of 5 women to graduate in my class, and in the first 20 to graduate from the program at all! I participated in several research projects including geo-physics and biogeochemistry projects in limnology, developing methods for the fabrication of nano-wire films, antenna design using cutting edge eco-friendly methods, energy system modeling and robotics projects in haptics & automation.
My Day At Work In this role I wear a lot of hats from product planning, launch and the associated policies, to carrying out the R&D network activities to assess current capabilities and plan for new ones, to participating and contributing in various standards groups in both aviation and telecommunications spaces. Since we are still in an emerging space, I have become a subject matter expert on all things aerial cellular technology very fast, and thus I support many branches of our teams in R&D, product development, policy and regulatory. Most of my day is often devoted to the bridge between R&D and product development. I work with various types of engineers to plan flight testing where we look at how new network features, services, or configurations work in the air, like 5G. We work to get information from drone designers and operators, as well as standards and regulatory bodies, to turn this research into products and services which will help drones and other aircraft operate safely in the National Air Space using 4G LTE and 5G networks.
Best Part I've always been passionate about wanting to create things, and engineers get the ultimate opportunity to be creative makers. What I also learned while in school that really made me fall in love with engineering is the power of my own thought process. Being able to see something and understand it, learning how to make connections and solve problems, it is like an amusement park for my brain! And being an engineer means that you always get to be learning and always have the opportunity to work in new areas of life. Also, it is really fulfilling when you see the positive impacts of work you are doing on the world. Though a lot of my work has been in consumer and industrial electronics, helping a company learn how to reliably shave off 1ms from their fault response means entire neighborhoods being protected from outages. It's not always obvious the importance of the work your doing when your an engineer at the design level, but when you stop and take in the big picture, it is pretty amazing!
Proud Moments I went back to school as a single mom, I am most proud of that. I had a pretty successful business career with bright prospects and lots of opportunity, but I made the difficult decision to follow a passion and make the jump to do something unknown (and really hard!). And I did it well, and my daughter loved being part of the process; I even homeschooled her for 1 year of my program, for which she went to class and lab with me every day. Once, she even raised her hand in class to answer a question! That was a huge accomplishment to me, to show her that we can do hard things and that girls are really smart!
Challenges Being a single mom while going through school was definitely difficult. I had to make hard choices around trade-offs about where I wanted to go to school and what opportunities I wanted to pursue so that I could still give Gia the time and energy she needed. This meant choosing a new program over a highly rated one, so that I would not be competing for resources with people who had a natural advantage over me because they could make school 100% of their focus. It also meant choosing a less expensive school so I could afford to maintain e a home and not live in a dorm or other student living situation. Those tradeoffs ultimately paid off, and I ended up grabbing every opportunity that came up in my smaller program and graduated with more research experience than most of my masters/graduate level peers. The other big challenge I've faced is dealing with the social stereotypes of women. There is this expectation that we are perfect moms, homemakers, and beauty queens. Then in my career, I have been treated differently because I am a woman, sometimes given preference, and sometimes not listened too, and sometimes treated like an accessory. I've always had to work a little harder to get taken seriously. I've found that the best way to deal with this is to do the internal work of developing resilience against this idea of what a woman "is supposed to be," and stand up for yourself, your worth and your values. That is not easy work, and it never ends.
My Family Me and my 2 siblings were first generation Italian. My mom immigrated to the USA when she was 18. She always wanted to come to America because she wanted to go to school. In Italy, her family was not supportive of this and still had old cultural ideas that women were home makers, not scholars or academics. We grew up in poverty, and faced a lot of adversities, but my mom was strong and didn't let these things get her down. I watched her get her masters degree, with honors, as a single mom of three. I think this is why my siblings and I all take education very seriously, and we have all pursued difficult degrees on our own, that was just the expectation. I have a daughter who is almost 16, and she wants to be a doctor.
Dreams and Goals Short term, I am working on launching 5G for the Sky! Long term, I am personally interested in extending the things I've learned about energy transfer into other spaces such as medical and health. This may look similar to what I am doing now, or may look totally different, but I've come to appreciate the complexity of the "Human Machine" and believe that there is a lot of amazing healing capabilities that new technologies can facilitate. This seems like a big leap in career goals, but I see the two as similar in concept. That is the beauty of engineering, learning about one fundamental space inherently educates you about another, and it is OK to have a career full of different applications!
Inspiration My daughter has had the greatest influence on me. I often see myself in her, all the time. Sometimes that is good, sometimes it is an uncomfortable mirror to look into. Leading by example for her by doing goof by myself and fulfilling my dreams and goals is my biggest inspiration.
Want to be an Engineer? Just do it. You can. Get it. You are smart enough. Believe this, and just get started. From here, be curious. Talk to people and read things. Listen to what is interesting to you, and seek out people and topics which can help you learn more about it. Don't be afraid to ask people to help you learn, in my experience people LOVE to help young curious individuals learn and grow. And, don't give up and get discouraged when things don't go your way. This will happen, and there is opportunity in every path. You don't need tons of money, scholarships, or ivy league schools to get a stellar education and build out a great and fulfilling career path for yourself. You just have to believe that you deserve to have a seat at that table, that you are smart enough to do it, and that you don't actually have to do it perfectly (ever).
Hobbies I like to hike and do pretty much anything outside. I build things, do home projects, paint, and enjoy arts and crafts. More than anything, I like hanging out with people and eating good food.