This year, five spectacular graduating seniors were recognized as Outstanding Women in Engineering at SWE's Evening with Industry. The winners are: Payton Porter, Izzy Starr, Joselyne Martinez, Corinne Watson, and Sydney Nunes.

 

Meet the Winners

Payton Porter

Aerospace Engineering

Payton is an Aerospace Engineering graduate student and currently serving as the Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers chapter President. In addition to her impactful service in SWE, Payton has had multiple impressive internships and is working on cutting-edge research on space sustainability. As a result of her accomplishments inside and outside the classroom, some of her accolades include being selected for a Brooke Owens fellowship – a prestigious honor with over 1000 annual applicants, and a maximum of 50 fellows per class. Additionally, last fall, she was one of 10 students in the nation selected as a SWE Outstanding Collegiate Member.

Izzy Starr

Biomedical Engineering

For four years, Izzy has worked as a research student in Dr. Kristen Cardinal’s lab, serving the last two years in the role of lab manager. Izzy has been a student leader on 5 Stryker Neurovascular industry contracts, and she will likely be the 1st author on at least one and possibly two peer-reviewed publications. Impressively, several of her lab studies involved surgeons coming to the lab to do the device deployments. Her internships have been equally remarkable, including working for Edwards Lifesciences, where she focused on designing and implementing new test methods for transcatheter heart valves.

Joselyne Martinez

Civil Engineering

Joselyne's professors describe her "as a wonderful role model for her peers – especially other community college transfer students looking to learn and make the most of their Cal Poly experience.” In addition to her outstanding academic performance, with a Cal Poly GPA of 3.96, she has been an officer in the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and served on the Civil Engineering Department Student Advisory Board. Joselyne has had impressive internships for the last four summers and recently received a full-time offer to continue her geotechnical engineering work at VTA’s Silicon Valley BART Project after graduation.

Corinne Watson

Environmental Engineering

During her first year, Corinne joined a Cal Poly research lab where she continues today to work on developing environmentally friendly materials containing nanopores designed for selective carbon capture. As first author, she has co-authored and published a peer-reviewed journal paper, presented at international conferences, and successfully secured funding to support her research. She is described by her faculty recommender “As a person who exudes authenticity with grand aspirations, kindness, empathy, and a profound respect for everyone.”

Sydney Nunes

Mechanical Engineering

Sydney will graduate from Cal Poly with a Mechanical Engineering undergraduate degree in less than 4 years, with a 3.9 GPA, while working part-time, and being the 1st in her family to graduate from college. Her faculty nominator commented that “Her homework, lab reports, project reports, and exams are some of the best I have ever seen in my career. I usually show her works as sample/model assignment at the beginning of all my classes.” Sydney is described as “a kindhearted person, polite, humble and willing to share success with her community and take her peers and colleagues along with her as she progresses in her career.”

Evening With Industry

Evening with Industry, a SWE event, starts with a networking session where you can connect with several company representatives and industry members. After networking, you have a dinner with the company of your choice for a more in-depth conversation, a delicious dinner, an inspiring keynote speaker, and awards and scholarship presentation.