Our faculty alumni coordinator Diana has written the following summary of the event:
It was a fantastic day with inspiring presentations at Women in EE
On Friday - 4 October - the Women in Electrical Engineering took place. It was another great afternoon with really engaging presentations by EE Alumni ladies. The audience also joined in nicely by asking interesting questions.
The Electrical Engineering programme director, Cora Salm, opened the day, and Ellen van Rossem started the lecture series.
Ellen completed the Bachelor and Master programme in Electrical Engineering (towards Integrated Circuit Design) at UT (2006 and 2009, respectively). She has been working at Sensata Technologies as an Electrical Design Engineer for five years and is the only lady Electrical Engineer in her department. In a disciplinary group, she works on pressure sensor applications for cars, among other things. During the presentation, Ellen also talked about how she experienced the difference between SMEs and Multinationals.
Quote Ellen:’I love the fun of figuring out how to fix things, learning something every day, and helping and explaining the electrical side of applications to colleagues or clients.’
The second presentation was given by Iris van Uitert. She is a senior QA/RA Engineer at Demcon within the Life Sciences and Health department.
Quote Iris: ‘As Sr. QA/RA Engineer, I support juniors and mediors and consultancy is also part of my duties. My job is diverse, dynamic and challenging. Never a dull moment!’
Within Demcon, you can work in different departments. Iris has been working in the Life Sciences & Health department since 2012. Her work focuses not only on medical devices but also on IVDs (In-vitro diagnostics are tests that can detect diseases, disorders and infections).
Besides her work, Iris also talked about why she decided to study Electrical Engineering and why she continued as a PhD after graduating. A large percentage of Demcon employees have a PhD background, like Iris.
After the break, it was time for Maryam Dodangeh's story. Maryam completed her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Electrical Engineering in Tehran, Iran and in 2023 she obtained her PhD from UT.
Quote: ‘Being able to do my PhD within Bram Nauta's research group (Integrated Circuit Design) made my dream of getting to know him and being part of his group come true.’
Maryam developed her first chip - 50uW BLE receiver - during her PhD research, for which she also received a patent. She later switched to clk-harvesting receivers and thus came into contact with Renesas Electronics. Here, she now works as a senior Analog Design Engineer and deals with Wireless Connectivity & Audio.
She also discussed the pros and cons of ‘being a woman’ in the Electrical Engineering research field and how a PhD has helped her career.
Cora concluded the afternoon by thanking the speakers and Elfride ten Dam, from KIVI, who helped us with the organisation of this afternoon.
After this, we had a drink together. During this informal get-together, the speakers and visitors networked a lot.
Thanks also to Sensata Technologies and Demcon, who made this afternoon possible through their sponsorship of Women in EE.
