BARBARA HUGHEY: OK.
So as Kristen said,
I'm Barbara Hughey.
I teach in the Mechanical
Engineering Department at MIT.
And I thought you might want to
just see a little bit about me.
So I was more or
less from New Jersey.
I was born in Philadelphia,
lived in New Jersey and outside
of Philadelphia.
There we go.
I moved back and forth about
every two and a half years.
Briefly moved to Southern
California when I moved.
And in fact I was an
undergraduate at Princeton
where I went in as
a physics major.
I had always loved
math and physics.
I ended up coming out with
an engineering physics
degree in the
mechanical and aerospace
engineering department, which
was awesome for what I'm
doing now, and also for
a lot of the research
I did before I came back to MIT.
And then I came up to Boston to
get my PhD in physics at MIT.
Very highly esoteric
subject that
was great fun involving
quantum mechanics,
but not terribly useful.
And then I worked for a
couple small companies
in the area mostly doing
applications of particle
accelerators to medicine.
And actually a
lot of it-- I know
you're spending the day on
sort of imaging and image
processing-- I did a lot with
positron emission Tomography
images, magnetic MRI
images, things like that.
And then in 2002
I came back to MIT
to teach the undergraduate
measurement and instrumentation
class, where I basically teach
students how to do experiments.
And we have a project we
call Go Forth and Measure,
where each student picks their
own project and does something.
Actually, Kristen, what was
your Go Forth and Measure?
What was your go forth
and measure project?
KRISTEN: Me?
BARBARA HUGHEY: You.
KRISTEN: Oh.
So does anyone like to run here?
Track?
Awesome.
Me too.
I took a pressure sensor
and put it inside a sneaker,
and I tried running
on different surfaces
and compared the
impact of running
on a treadmill versus
running on concrete.
BARBARA HUGHEY: And we have
a lot of really cool projects
like that where people do
everyday things that they're
interested in, including
food, things like that.
So anyways, back to the
women's technology program.
So I came to MIT in 2002.
In 2006 I was asked to expand
the existing women's technology
program which was founded in
2002 in electrical engineering
and computer science.
So most of what you're doing
today would fit more in that.
And then we expanded it
to mechanical engineering.
And the goal is to spark
high school girl's interest
in studying engineering
and computer science, which
is I think exactly the
goal of this program, too.
So our approach is to pick
girls to pick students
who are rising high
school seniors who
are really good and really
interested in math and science,
but don't really have a
background in engineering.
Have maybe heard of
engineering, people maybe
tell them you should
think about engineering,
but they don't really
know what it is.
They haven't taken a lot
of engineering classes.
They're just
curious and not sure
what they want to major in.
So we give them a four week
exposure to engineering.
There are two curriculum
tracks, electrical engineering
and computer science, and
then the one that I run,
which is mechanical engineering.
I don't have a lot of time so I
can't go into too much detail,
but I'll be happy
to answer questions
about what we do in them.
They're mostly hands on classes,
like what you're doing today.
We of course-- especially
mechanical engineering--
have to teach them
a lot of physics,
because you can't do much
in mechanical engineering
until you have physics.
But physics is fun.
It really is.
And then try to correct ideas
about what engineers are like
and what they do.
And the students give
us wonderful quotes,
such as that they
realize engineering
has so much more depth and
so many more applications.
Coming in they have some of the
preconceptions that you might
have, which is that
engineers work alone,
it's not very exciting,
not very people oriented.
But in fact it is.
You work a lot in teams, as
I think you're doing today.
And you get to do a whole
range of applications
and make products that
are helpful to people.
We also want to increase
confidence of the students
by exposing them to female
engineers of all ages.
Give them an
opportunity to live away
from home-- so it's four
weeks living away from home.
The students live
in the MIT dorms.
They live with MIT undergrads
are recent graduates who
help them with their
homework, and also do
social outings and everything.
And the classes are taught
by graduate students
in mechanical
engineering or EECS.
And-- I already said
some of this-- so again,
it's a hands on.
There's 40 students
in the EECS track
and 20 students in the
mechanical engineering track,
so there's 60 students total.
We have hands on lab
classes with projects
in mechanical engineering.
We like to have a sort
of capstone project
at the end of each week,
which ranges from building
cranes that can sustain a
certain amount of weight,
through doing oral
presentations,
making a poster presentation.
And then there are two special
final week presentations
where the EECS students
build DC motors,
and the WTP-ME students
build Rube Goldberg machines,
which are basically just
chain reaction machines.
But the thing we do
to make it possibly
a little more interesting
is they have to figure out
what's going on in every step.
So it's not just
trial and error,
they have to apply the design
principles we've taught them.
They have to use the
physics and the science
we've taught them to
figure out what's going on,
and then make their machine run.
And we also do a lot of faculty
and industry guest speakers
and tours.
We also have, as I said, MIT
students and recent graduates
are the instructors
and also the tutors
that live with the students.
And these are some
photos from the motor
building for the EECS.
So this is actually the
professor who runs it.
They figure out the
design of their motor,
then they do all the machining.
They build them in pairs.
So that's one of the
completed motors.
And they use actually the
mechanical engineering shop
to do all this.
And then here's some
photographs from ME
the track where you see
a Rube Goldberg machine.
Dominoes are of
course often used.
Various types of trip
wires and things.
Usually pendulums
and Slinkys used.
And then there's a final step.
They can decide.
This one for their
final step, they
pulled aside a curtain that
then showed a photograph
of all the students and staff.
So since 2002-- reminder
again, ME started in 2006,
but EECS started in 2002.
Up through last summer we've had
744 females finish the program.
They all have a-- they say
WTP has a big impact on them.
Many of them-- as I'll share on
the next slide-- many of them
go into engineering.
Some of them after
going through WTP
decide that they actually
don't like engineering.
It's not for them.
That's a perfectly
great outcome for us
as well, because then they
have learned and saved
their parents money of sending
them to an engineering school.
They've learned, oh I don't
really like engineering.
I want to do something else.
So either outcome is fine.
We just want to expose
them and give them
a real more realistic view of
what engineering actually is.
Many of them would not have
thought of an engineering major
or applying to MIT.
And as you see,
actually many of them
end up majoring in either
engineering or computer
science.
More than 60% of the
alumni have majored
or are majoring in engineering
or computer science.
Many others in
science, math, there's
a big bunch in business,
and then a few of others.
So it's highly successful
for its goal, which really
is to get girls interested
in majoring in engineering,
or at the very least to let them
know what engineering is about.
And this is, I think, the
class of 2014, probably.
And that's our website.
And so if you have
any questions--
no-- acknowledgements first.
I couldn't do this alone.
There's a woman
who runs the EECS
program and the whole program.
The ME program is funded
by an amazing woman who
is in her-- actually
I think she just
turned 80, who is a
mechanical engineer.
And she funds our program.
And then various other people.
So, any questions?
Nothing.
OK.
OK, and if you are not-- I know
there are some juniors here,
which unfortunately have missed
the deadline for this summer.
But if you are not a junior,
if you're an eighth, ninth,
or 10th grader, look
in around November
of your junior year on
that website right there
and look for
application information.
And the applications are
usually due at the beginning
of January.
OK?
OK.
[APPLAUSE]
