Member Spotlight & Awards
SWE Annual Award Program
The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) recently announced the recipients of its annual awards program, celebrating the trailblazers driving progress within the STEM community and championing the advancement of women in engineering. This year’s award recipients were recognized at WE25, the world’s largest conference and career fair for women engineers and technologists on Oct. 24th in New Orleans.
Spark Award
- Delia Contreras, Honeywell, SWE Houston Area
- Annita McCurdy, Exxon Mobil Corporation, SWE Houston Area
Beacon Award
- Bindu Krishnan, Ph.D., Dow, SWE Houston Area
Distinguished Global Leader Award
- Chris Huang, P.Eng, HP Inc., SWE Houston Area
Esteemed New Professional Member Award
- Sarah Oldenburg, Williams, SWE Houston Area
Esteemed Professional Member Award
- Amy Gelsinger, SWE Houston Area
Rising Technical Contributor Award
- Yutong Pang, Ph.D., Dow, SWE Houston Area
- Arunima Saxena, Ph.D., Dow, SWE Houston Area
You can find the full list of recipients on the SWE awards website and on the SWE blog.
SWE-HA Local Awards
The Society of Women Engineers strives to advance and honor the contributions of women at all stages of their careers as well as recognize the successes of SWE members and individuals who enhance the engineering profession through contributions to industry, education and the community.
Career Achievement Award – The Career Achievement Award recognizes a SWE HA member who has made significant contributions to the field of engineering thus helping pave the way for future female engineers. This award is intended to recognize members who have demonstrated leadership in their organization to support the success of future female engineers.
Community Outreach Award – The Community Outreach Award recognizes a SWE HA member who has made significant contributions to the community where they live and work. This award is intended to recognize members whose involvement has been focused serving the community through volunteerism.
Exemplary Leader Award – The Exemplary Leader Award recognizes a SWE HA member who has demonstrated leadership abilities in their work and community. This award is intended to recognize a member who has exhibited the ability to show her leadership abilities in multiple facets of her life thus making a difference in other’s lives.
SWE HA New Member Award – The SWE HA New Member Award recognizes a SWE HA Member who is new to SWE HA and made contributions to the success of SWE HA. This award is intended to recognize a new member who has involvement in advancing the mission of SWE HA.
The SWE-HA Awards Program opens in the spring. Check the newsletter or contact vpinternal@houstonswe.org for more information on nominations.
Congratulations to our Past Local Award Recipients!
FY23 Career Achievement Award – Diondria Holliman
FY23 New Member Award – Erin Smith
FY23 Exemplary Leader Award – Natasha Goode
Member Spotlight
SWE-HA highlights and celebrates the achievements of our outstanding members on a regular basis
Were you inspired by a fellow SWE-HA member’s recent promotion, award, publication, patent, participation on an industry panel, speaking role at a conference, feature in an article/news segment, or dedication to a volunteer cause?
Please take a moment to empower a fellow SWE-HA member (or yourself!) by recognizing their exciting accomplishment using the form below:
Meet some of our amazing members in the SWE Houston section!
Sarah Oldenburg serves as the Society of Women Engineers Houston Area Section (SWE-HA) FY2024 membership chair. As one of the most involved and time-consuming roles within SWE-HA, Sarah has already knocked it out of the park within the first 2 months of the fiscal year. The membership chair is responsible for organizing the first event of the fiscal year, the Kick-Off Membership Event. Within 3 weeks of holding the membership chair position, Sarah led a team to host one of the Section’s most successful membership events to date. With over 90 registrations and 70+ attendees, the FY24 Kick-Off Membership event was one for the books. Having a strong kick-off event is key to recruiting and maintaining membership for the section throughout the fiscal year. This year’s event also led to some new members volunteering to join one or more of SWE-HA’s many committees that organize and manage the amazing events the Section hosts throughout the year.
Ky Cao graduated from Texas A&M University in 2020 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a certificate in Safety Engineering. She was born and raised in Texas and currently works as an Environmental Consultant at Spirit Environmental, LLC, specializing in air permitting, compliance, and reporting. Ky Cao has been an active SWE member since 2016 during her undergraduate studies and has been involved with SWE-HA since 2020, serving as Secretary in
FY22 and as Web Virtuoso in FY22-FY24. As you may have noticed, the SWE-HA website got a new look in January! She and Kathryn Schoer were instrumental in the process of completing the website transition and building the new SWE-HA website platform as required by SWE Headquarters. Her role as Web Virtuoso is responsible for maintaining and updating the website to ensure we best showcase all of our information and events to anyone who visits the SWE-HA website. Another SWE section even reached out for help resolving issues with the new platform and even complimented how good
the SWE-HA website looks, saying it “is one of the best” SWE section websites they’ve seen. Having a well-maintained website is key to upholding SWE-HA’s positive visibility with members and non-members, corporate partners, and the community and we are grateful to have Ky in the Web Virtuoso role!
This month SWE-HA is spotlighting, Leteshia Lowe, for her dedication to K-12 STEM outreach. Leteshia spearheaded the Society of Women Engineers Houston Area Section’s first SWENext group this fiscal year. By providing monthly programs for middle to high school students on differing engineering disciplines, she has made significant impact in bringing engineering to young girls within the Houston Area and further expanded SWE-HA’s reach to the next generation of women engineers. Leteshia Lowe is a Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM) at IBM, where she is responsible for testing of the IBM FlashSystem product family, an all-flash enterprise storage platform. She has over 20 years of experience in hardware and firmware test focused on storage solutions, data backup and more recently Flash memory. As a technical test specialist, Leteshia provides debug and failure investigation, strategic test management and innovative Reliability, Availability and Serviceability (RAS) testing solutions, while helping to mentor new employees to the overall team. As a first-generation college student, Leteshia is passionate about encouraging and motivating women to pursue careers in engineering by sharing her journey. She is currently on the Advisory Board for the NSBE Houston Professional Chapter Outreach Zone and chair of the SWENext Committee for SWE Houston Area Section, hosting monthly STEM sessions; working to increase STEM access to minorities and underrepresented communities. Leteshia is a past Pre-collegiate Initiative Chair of the NSBE Houston Professional Chapter, past Vice President of Outreach and FY23 President of the SWE Houston Area section. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from HBCU Tennessee State University and a Master of Education degree in Secondary Education from the University of Arizona. When not engaged in her varied volunteer activities, Leteshia enjoys movies, bike riding, and spending time with family.
Julie Surfus is a Senior Energy Engineer for Siemens Smart Infrastructure, helping customers throughout the US identify and take action towards their decarbonization goals. She helps quantify and implement energy efficiency strategies and clean energy solutions through a sustainability consulting approach. Prior to joining Siemens, Julie spent 8 years at Dow in hydrocarbons manufacturing as a Process Automation Team Lead followed by a Supply Chain Manager role. She was selected to participate in the Dow Sustainability Academy and helped execute corporate sustainability initiatives. She is a continuous learner, fueled by her passion for travel and the outdoors. Julie holds a degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Colorado – Boulder, where she began her involvement with SWE in 2010. She served as the collegiate section Vice President for 2 terms, leading the flagship Evening with Industry event. As an alumna, she enjoys mentoring and being a Houston Area Engineering Ambassador. As a SWE Houston Area professional member, she has participated on the Professional Development Committee, acted as a Networking Committee Co-chair, and will be doing her second term as the Professional Development Chair for FY24. Her career path began with an internship awarded at the WE12 National Conference and came full circle participating as both a speaker and exhibitor at WE22. As Professional Development Chair, Julie hosted 3 successful events throughout this fiscal year. What made these events extra special was the partnerships Julie and her team secured with local companies (SABIC and AlliantGroup) and universities (Rice University). These partnerships have extended the reach of SWE’s mission beyond members to the greater Houston community.
Young Engineer of the Year & Woman of Excellence
Annually, SWE-HA awards one of our members with E-Week’s Young Engineer of the Year Award (https://houstonengineersweek.org) and Federation of Houston Professional Women’s (FHPW) Woman of Excellence Award.
2023 Young Engineer of the Year – Julie Surfus
Please join us in congratulating Julie Surfus as our 2023 Young Engineer of the Year! We are so proud of her! We will be celebrating her accomplishments on February 20th.
Julie Surfus is a Senior Energy Engineer for Siemens Smart Infrastructure, helping customers throughout the US identify and take action towards their decarbonization goals. She helps quantify and implement energy efficiency strategies and clean energy solutions through a sustainability consulting approach. Prior to joining Siemens, Julie spent 8 years at Dow in hydrocarbons manufacturing as a Process Automation Team Lead followed by a Supply Chain Manager role. She was selected to participate in the Dow Sustainability Academy and helped execute corporate sustainability initiatives. She is a continuous learner, fueled by her passion for travel and the outdoors.
Julie holds a degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Colorado – Boulder where she began her involvement with SWE in 2010. She served as the collegiate section Vice President for 2 terms, leading the flagship Evening with Industry event. As an alumna, she enjoys mentoring and being a Houston Area Engineering Ambassador. As a SWE Houston Area professional member, she has participated on the Professional Development Committee, acted as a Networking Committee Co-chair, and is currently the Professional Development Chair. Her career path began with an internship awarded at the WE12 National
Conference and came full circle participating as both a speaker and exhibitor at WE22.