Social Good Engineering Magazine: GineersNow Social Innovation GineersNow Engineering Magazine Issue No. 001 | Page 29

ENGINEER CHICK
Women in Space Seek More Women in Space
by Farrel Pinto
Natalie Panek Dr. Lucianne Walkowicz Vinita Marwaha Madill

This strong sentiment is what
Natalie Panek, a mission systems engineer
in robotics and automation at Canada’s
MDA Corp., firmly believes. A wider per-
spective is necessary, which looks at the
statistics regarding women advancing in
their careers into leadership, director-lev-
el, and board-level positions according to
her.

As a child, watching TV shows
like Star Trek and Stargate SG-1 inspired
her to a life’s calling- Space. She just not
designs rovers but also aims to inspire
women to pursue their dreams and see
their reflections in the industry. She
also pointed out resolving problem on
retaining women in STEM fields through-
out their careers. Women must not be
hindered to rise up and advance in their
careers, she implied.

Natalie Panek is a rocket scien-
tist and an explorer, as she calls herself,
who dreams to become an astronaut.
Now, she works with her team to build
chassis and locomotion system for the
European Space Agency’s 2018 ExoMars
Rover. She was recently named as Can-
ada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by
the Woman’s Executive Network.

She is a vocal advocate for
woman in technology according to The
Financial Post and named under Forbes
30 under 30 in 2015.
Dr. Lucianne Walkowicz, an
astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in
Chicago, also sees that diversity in her in-
dustry is imperative. Thus, conducting more
research is needed to back this up.

She also argued on a report on re-
cruiting women into technical positions by
the Anita Borg Institute that there are con-
sistent blind spots in recruiting and hiring
practices. There are hiring processes that
are implicitly biased lacking organizational
infrastructure to support diversity efforts.

It recommends to take up steps
like blind resume screening process, show-
ing technical women during the interview
process and that every technical position
has a viable female candidate.

She was inspired to pursue her
field upon her interest in chemistry and
physics in high school. Wanting a career
consisting both, she participated a research
program at the New York Academy of Sci-
ences. Someone suggested astronomy and
brought her to work with a professor in
New York University on chemistry of plane-
tary atmospheres. From there, she immedi-
ately was fascinated in the field. 

Now, as an astronomer, she works
both on research and public education. Lu-
cianne currently works on the Large Synop-
tic Survey Telescope project which she says
the flagship observatory for the next decade.
As a consultant in space engi-
neering and STEM outreach and founder
of Rocket Women, Vinita focused on wom-
en and space. She aims to encourage more
women to enter the field.

Vinita Marwaha Madill works
as engineering manager leading the In-
telligent Transportation Systems Team in
Canada. She also stints as an International
Space Station operations engineer at the
German Aerospace Center.

She works on a diversity of de-
signing smart roads and spacesuits, pro-
posing parabolic flights and the likes.

Vinita found her fascination
in space back in his childhood days in
London where she learned about Helen
Sharman, a chemist and the first British
astronaut, who flew to Mir. At the age of
6, she was fond of the space as her parents
took her planetarium and space centers.

She suggests that to encourage
more women, they should think about ca-
reers in space, science and other equivalent
fields that would focus impact of technolo-
gy to mankind.

From here, we see that women
as equals can also advance in science and
technology. Nothing should hinder them as
they could positively influence the young
people to pursue their dreams and express
themselves in their chosen paths.
Photo Source: The Lavin Agency Photo Source: Rocket-women
Photo Source: Flare
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