Unlimited Possibilities

Life Invented at SCU

As we look with fresh eyes at how we nurture gender bias and the barriers women face in education and beyond, we are now able to consider new possibilities and solutions already in action. In this episode, we invite you to imagine what it’s like to learn in an environment with one of the highest percentages of female engineering staff in the country. Listen in as we chat with Dr. Tonya Nilsson and 2017 graduate Cynthia Le, two women who are here to share their experience as Women in Engineering at Santa Clara University. SPEAKERS: Dr. Tonya Nilsson, Department of Civil Engineering Tonya Nilsson is a full-time lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering at Santa Clara University. Previously, she was on the faculty at California State University, Chico where she was a tenured Associate Professor. Dr. Nilsson has her Professional License and has worked in industry on structural engineering projects. She received her Bachelors in Architectural Engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 1991, her Masters in Structural Engineering from Stanford University in 1993, and her Ph.D. in Structural Mechanics from University of California at Davis in 2002. Her Ph.D. research focused on the development of new material properties to model crack propagation on ductile materials. Dr. Nilsson has a strong interest in engineering education and worked for eight years with ASCE's ExCEED Teaching Workshops to train other engineering faculty on effective teaching methods and served for four years on the national ASCE, Committee on Faculty Development. She is also a member of School of Engineering's NSF "Engage" team. Cynthia Le, ‘17, Computer Science and Engineering Cynthia graduated from Santa Clara University in 2017 and transitioned her internship at Google to a full-time gig as a Creative Technologist. While at SCU, she was a member of the hip hop dance team, an Undergraduate Admissions Ambassador. Originally from Boise, ID, she studied abroad to Scotland and was an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Robotics Systems Laboratory.