Answers: Women in Engineering

• Susan Margulies has been conducting research on young children whose brain tissue and skull stiffness is very different from adults.
  Answer: Before her research, peopled believed that head injuries were cause by large pressure changes in the brain. Her research has proved that the part of the brain that is most distorted is the same part of the brain that sustained the most industry. This research will be used in helping to prevent and treat traumatic brain injuries caused by car collisions, sports accidents, child abuse, and falls that debilitate or kill thousands each year.
  
  
• Treena Livingston Arinzeh is a rising star in the field of tissue engineering. She has found that calcium and phosphorous can be made into a porous scaffold resembling a hard sponge. When stem cells sitting on the sponge are injected into lab animals, new bone cells form within four to six weeks.
  Answer: Her work in tissue engineering is targeted to repairing tissue and bone injuries or diseases. Her newest challenge is to develop scaffolds to carry stem cells for spinal cord repair.
  
  
• Jennifer West has developed nanoshells, teeny-tiny particles with optical (light) properties that can burn out tumors.
  Answer:  Jennifer discovered a unique form of cancer treatment that has been 100 percent successful in lab animals. The nanoshells can be injected into the blood stream and are attracted to cancel cells. When a fiber optic laser light is shined on the area, the nanoshells go into action and burn out the cancerous tissue.
  
  
• Danielle Julie Carrier is researching the use of “phytochemicals”—the chemicals that naturally occur in plants.
  Answer: Julie is working to isolate the chemicals from food and test them to discover health benefits. For example, Julie has learned that silymarins from milk thistle and lycopene from watermelon help to prevent fats in “bad” cholesterol from oxidizing that can break down healthy cells. “The relationship developing between agriculture and medicine is incredibly exciting,” she says.
  
  
• Marybeth Lima is examining different varieties of rice of part of the bran layer to determine where the most antioxidants—agents that help repair cells in the body—are found.
  Answer: As a biological engineer Marybeth is researching better uses for rice waste, created from removing the outer husk and bran layer when making white rice. “There are cancer-fighting compounds in rice bran as well as protein, oil, and vitamin E. “Adding rice bran to foods and its extracts to pharmaceuticals not only promotes health it’s also better for the environment,” she says.
  
  
• Barbara Fox, civil engineer. In the early 1991s, she overcame one of the greatest challenges to the City of Chicago’s water supply. 
  Answer: The Zebra Mussel, a non-native species, threatened Great Lakes Water supplies by upsetting the ecosystem and blocking water intakes. Working as an engineer in the Chicago Department of Water, she found that rather than overreacting, the department could simply inspect and clean intake screens and treatment plant basis, and the situation remains stable today.
  
  
• Barbara E. Featherston developed a water treatment program using ozone instead of chlorine.
  Answer: Ozone provides a better alternative to chlorine in making water safe for dinking and removes any musty tastes and odors that can build up in some water supplies. Now residents of Bossier City, LA, are enjoying water from the tap instead of buying bottled water or using personal water filters.
  
  
• Cheryl Phanstiel Ulrich is working to mimic water flow once natural in the Everglades.
  Answer: She is part of a team that is trying to mimic water flow once natural to the area to recreate the famed “river of grass” so native animals can return and the marsh will come back to life.
  
  
• Diane Dorland has become a pollution private investigator.
  Answer: Even after wastewater is treated, trace amounts of mercury can remain that might pollute lakes and streams. Fish can absorb the mercury, which can then wind up in people.  When the Duluth, MN, found mercury in its incoming sewage and treated waste water, Diane was called upon to find the source. Her team tracked it down to wastewater from a nearby pulp and paper mill. She found that the mercury was an impurity in a chemical used during the bleaching cycle.
  
  
• Sian E. M. Jenkins is a biomechanical engineer who employs her love of horses in the movies.
  Answer: While studying biomechanics at Oxford University, Sian used “motion capture,” a way to animate the movement of digital characters—animals of human beings. Using motion capture for the movie Troy, Sian created roughly 100,000 Greeks and 40,000 Trojans with horses, weapons, and ships in about two months. As an advocate of humane treatment for animals, Sian has developed simulation models and tools to animate horses and other animals so they are not subjected to the traumas of movie-making.
  
  
• Padmasree Warrior is Motorolla’s chief technology officer. Together with her team of 25,000 scientists and engineers she’s working to create technology breakthroughs for what she calls “seamless mobility.”
  Answer: “In today’s world, people want to stay in touch mo matter where they are—at home, work, in the care, or while they’re out and about, she says. She and her team are working on ways to make cell phones even more indispensable. She calls them “devices-formerly-known-as-cell-phones.” Soon you’ll be able to watch live TV on them and much more.