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The dearth of an engineering mentor whereas rising up didn’t hinder
Anna Zakrzewska from having a profitable profession in telecommunications. She is a senior principal engineer at Dell Applied sciences in Dublin. However Zakrzewska wonders how totally different her journey would have been if she’d had a mentor to information her when she was youthful.
“None of my relations or household pals had been engineers,” she says. “I additionally didn’t have any mentors in school, and I typically take into consideration how my profession could be totally different if I used to be uncovered to STEM earlier in life.”
The IEEE senior member has made it her mission to introduce kids to science, know-how, engineering, and arithmetic careers and to nurture their curiosity in STEM fields. She volunteers for organizations that just do that similar to
Technovation Ladies, which focuses on getting extra ladies fascinated about STEM. The nonprofit holds an annual competitors at which groups develop cell apps that handle real-world issues. Zakrzewska helps decide the entries.
She additionally gives steerage to school college students and younger professionals by way of outreach applications at Dell similar to
STEM Aspire.
For her work in STEM outreach and technical contributions to telecommunications analysis, Zakrzewska is the recipient of this yr’s
IEEE Theodore W. Hissey Excellent Younger Skilled Award. The consideration is sponsored by IEEE Younger Professionals and the IEEE Photonics and Energy & Vitality societies.
Receiving the award, Zakrzewska says, motivates her to proceed her volunteerism, mentoring, and technical profession.
Mentoring the following era of engineers
When Zakrzewska was rising up in Poland, she and her household typically listened to the radio. Their radio was in regards to the measurement of a microwave oven, she says, and she or he believed there have been little folks residing inside whose job was to entertain and inform listeners.
Zakrzewska says when somebody lastly defined to her the engineering that makes radios work, it was an summary idea.
About Anna Zakrzewska
EMPLOYER Dell Applied sciences in Dublin
TITLE Senior principal engineer
MEMBER GRADE Senior member
ALMA MATER Technical College of Denmark, in Kongens Lyngby
“Since I couldn’t really see how the system labored,” she says, “to me engineering was magic.”
Zakrzewska initially needed to turn into a radio broadcaster, however she additionally favored the concept of changing into an engineer so she might create know-how that folks would take into account magical like she did. In the end she selected to pursue engineering and figured she might write about know-how in her spare time.
After graduating with a grasp’s diploma in telecommunications and laptop science in 2008 from the
Wrocław College of Science and Expertise, in Poland, Zakrzewska initially didn’t know what sort of profession to pursue.
“I loved engaged on scholar analysis tasks however felt that the educational world was not for me. I couldn’t see myself as a lecturer,” she says. “However I wasn’t positive if I needed to be an industrial researcher both.”
She determined to offer analysis a attempt to in 2009 grew to become an intern at
Nippon Telegraph and Phone Corp., in Atsugi, Japan. She left after a couple of yr to take an analogous place on the European Fee’s Joint Analysis Centre in Ispra, Italy. It conducts telecommunications analysis and helps the European Union set coverage.
Discovering that she loved the work, Zakrzewska enrolled in 2010 in a doctoral program in wi-fi communications on the
Technical College of Denmark, in Kongens Lyngby.
Whereas there, she had her first expertise of being a mentor to undergraduate engineering college students as a member of the college’s
IEEE scholar department.
“If a door to a sure alternative is closed, don’t let that discourage you. Discover a strategy to open the door, or [find] one other means in.”
“The Ph.D.-level members of the department began a mentoring program as a result of we realized we might assist youthful college students with their research or give them recommendation about internships and profession paths,” she says. “The department additionally invited established professionals from quite a lot of electrical engineering fields to talk to college students.”
Collaborating in this system made Zakrzewska understand that many preuniversity faculties didn’t promote careers in STEM, she says, and that mentoring younger folks about such careers after they’re already college college students is “too late.”
After incomes her Ph.D. in 2013, she joined
Nokia Bell Labs in Dublin as a analysis scientist working in wi-fi communications and self-organizing networks. She has been granted a number of patents, which have been commercialized.
She additionally began to volunteer for STEM outreach organizations and applications. In 2015 she started managing the Nokia Bell Labs sales space on the
BT Younger Scientist & Expertise Exhibition (BTYSTE), an annual Irish science honest. She instructed children who visited the sales space about her job and answered their questions. They requested her questions similar to “Have you ever ever damaged something within the lab?” and “What do you do if issues don’t work—does your boss yell at you?”
“I answered their questions as in truth as I might,” Zakrzewska says, laughing, “whereas nonetheless making them really feel enthusiastic about working in STEM.”
Her volunteering at BTYSTE got here to an finish in 2021, when she left Nokia Bell Labs and joined Dell as a principal engineer at its
Telecom Co-innovation Knowledgeable Centre. She helps develop technical requirements for telecommunication know-how, particularly for open radio entry networks.
Rising fairness within the technical workforce
Zakrzewska grew to become energetic in 2017 with the annual
Grace Hopper Celebration, a gathering of ladies technologists. The occasion is organized by AnitaB.org, a nonprofit that’s working to extend intersectional fairness (equity with respect to each race and gender) within the world technical workforce. Zakrzewska is a committee member and is on the panel of reviewers for the scholarship program.
In 2020 she started volunteering for
I’m a Scientist, an enrichment program designed to attach college students with scientists and engineers. The mentors and college students interact in on-line chats on this system’s web site, and mentees can ask their mentor questions on their job. Zakrzewska says she enjoys serving to encourage the following era by sharing her real-life experiences.
She additionally started energetic in 2020 for the annual Technovation Ladies competitors. Groups of as much as 5 ladies between the ages of 8 and 18 develop a know-how that would handle challenges of their native communities.There are three divisions: newcomers, juniors, and seniors. Along with creating a cell app, the groups current a marketing strategy and a pitch video.
“I’m extraordinarily impressed by these tasks,” Zakrzewska says. “The scholars are capable of determine the important thing issues, which frequently relate to their respective age group and is probably not seen by adults, for instance local weather change nervousness or social media habit. Many have bold plans to companion with the native authorities and search sponsorship for his or her apps.
“Fixing these issues not solely gives a motivation to study new expertise in coding or teamwork, but in addition empowers the scholars to guide the change of their native communities.”
As a participant in Dell’s mentoring applications, Zakrzewska visits preuniversity faculties to elucidate to college students how she grew to become an engineer and what her job entails. She additionally gives profession steerage to the corporate’s interns and younger professionals as properly.
“I problem my mentees to step out of their consolation zone and, for instance, seek for job alternatives overseas,” she says. “I don’t imagine in folks limiting themselves.
“I try to point out them how their expertise are broadly relevant and that they will dream massive when it comes to the place their profession might lead them.”
Zakrzewska’s greatest piece of recommendation for her mentees, she says, is to create alternatives for themselves.
“If a door to a sure alternative is closed, don’t let that discourage you,” she counsels. “Discover a strategy to open the door or [find] one other means in.”
She is ready to obtain the Hissey Award on 5 Might on the
2023 IEEE Imaginative and prescient, Innovation, and Challenges Summit and Honors Ceremony, to be held on the Hilton Atlanta.
The views expressed on this interview are Anna Zakrzewska’s private opinions and don’t essentially mirror the views of any group talked about.
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