What are you doing today?

Writing GM’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions reporting policy and process. I also conduct GM’s GHG analysis and reporting for all global facilities and for US products. I am responsible for GM’s Technology Education program with the Department of Energy’s Science Bowl Programs. I manage GM’s Atlantic Rainforest project in Brazil with The Nature Conservancy. I am the President of a private medical and engineering forensic consulting firm called Med:For, Inc. I have recently been name vice president of the Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM): the professional society representing my educational background. I am the third woman to be named to become president of SEM. There are many other things that I am involved in and I am happy to share my CV.

What excites you most about the future of your professional field?

Engineering enables a better, safer, healthier life for all of us…as new technologies proliferate, it will be the engineers that bring the technologies into our day-to-day life.

What personal advice would you give to high-school students considering a career in engineering?

An engineering degree opens all doors to employment …across almost every discipline…why, because a degree in engineering conveys to the employer that you are able to solve problems.

What was your first job after graduation, and how did it impact your career?

GM – Research and Development Center (1993). I was asked to create a Satellite Laboratory Network for GM so we (GM) could canvas the globe and find technical expertise to supplement our R&D portfolio of projects. I called this insourcing intellectual equity. GM’s Satellite Network is fully operational across the globe and is enabled by the Master Agreement that I wrote in 1995.

What was your greatest experience while attending the College of Engineering here at MSU?

Research in the area of mechanics where I learned that I am a unique experimentalist: Optical Methods with Prof. Gary Cloud and Composite Structures with Prof. Dahsin Liu. As I reflect, I realize it is the people that cross our paths through life that are responsible for leaving lasting, very positive, impressions.

How does your profession impact people's lives?

Hopefully I am creating a new awareness in what is possible in managing GHG emissions such that the global climate issue over the near-term is no longer an issue…and I help people solve problems by first approaching the issue with what is possible rather than what is probable.

How were you inspired to become an engineer?

Innate interest in solving problems and understanding why things in nature occur as they do (physics major)