On March 22, 2023 – after three years of virtual programming – Nitsch Engineering hosted our 21st annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day! This year’s event, hosted at the Joyce Cummings Center at Tufts University (a Nitsch project) focused on Connecting Communities with Transportation Engineering.
The day kicked off with an icebreaker activity in which the girls learned key transportation infrastructure terminology, and used their new knowledge in a word search and word/definition matching exercise.
Lisa Brothers, PE, ENV SP, LEED AP BD+C, President & CEO, then welcomed the girls to the event and talked about the excitement and value of working in the field of engineering. She was followed by Kristen Antunes, EIT, Project Designer, who shared her story about what she likes about working within the transportation engineering field.
Then the fun began: in teams of four, the girls designed roadway cross sections that fit five different scenarios:
- Their ideal road
- Social justice
- Sustainability
- Local Business District
- School Zone
As part of this activity, girls considered community needs, construction cost, and available right-of-way widths when designing their roads. The activity was inspired by the very cool Streetmix online platform for roadway design – we invite you to take a look and play with it yourself!
While the girls were designing their roadways, adult chaperones were taken to a separate room to hear about how to support interest in STEM activities and the college admissions process from admissions counselors from Tufts University and Wentworth Institute of Technology.
The day wrapped up with a panel discussion, moderated by Brittney Ferber, PE, Project Manager, on being a woman in engineering. The panel included Kimberly Craig, EIT, Senior Project Designer; Madeline DeClerck, PE, Senior Project Manager at MassDOT (and former Nitsch Engineering employee!); Dzijeme (Dj) Lazares, Design Engineer at NHDOT; and Christina Sanon, PhD Student and Graduate Research Assistant in the Geohazards Research Lab at Tufts University.
Hear more about the day in this WBZ interview that took place at the event.
In addition to everyone already named in this post, thank you to Paige Blanchard, Michelle Callahan, Chelsea Christenson, Deb Colbert, Annie Cornell, Deb Danik, Marc Gabriel, Jenn Johnson, Kelsey Kern, Virginia Kilbourn, Anna Luciano, Kate Ovoian, Steve Ventresca, and Jess Wala for helping make the day a true success!
