Amy first became a SWE member as a freshman at the University of Kansas. Even as an undergraduate student, Amy supported the interests of graduate students by serving as that section’s Graduate Student Coordinator for two years where she built bridges between undergraduate and graduate students on her campus. For example, she established an annual seminar where faculty and graduate students could inspire interest in their research topics and share opportunities with undergraduates. Amy also served as the President of the University of Kansas SWE section, where she led a team of ten executive members, managed section-wide meetings, organized an annual conference trip, and worked with the alumni center to raise money and recruit guest speakers.
Last fall Amy took her growing expertise on mentoring to a larger audience: the annual WE19 conference in Anaheim, CA. Her panel, “Mentoring in Graduate School” was accepted for presentation and well attended, despite being one of the last sessions of the conference. The panel consisted of three professionals, a graduate student, and two undergraduates and raised awareness of how mentoring can help increase the number of women engineers that go to graduate school and guide graduate students in increasing their career potential.
Amy’s potential as an aspiring chemical engineering researcher has been recognized by a variety of awards and invitations, such as the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She has received a travel grant to the International Society of Photosynthetic Research conference and presented posters at the Genomic Sciences Program DOE meeting and the Microbiome Conference.
The SWE Graduate Community is proud to recognize Amy Zheng (Vanderbilt University) as a 2020 GradSWE Outstanding Individual!