ENG Alum Receives Presidential Award for
Mentoring Excellence
When she graduated from Boston University over 25 years ago, Karen Panetta (EE’85) recognized two obstacles blocking young women from pursuing and completing undergraduate studies in engineering: a dearth of role models and an abundance of negative media portrayals of engineers as socially inept eggheads. So within a few years of joining the ECE faculty at Tufts University, Panetta formed “Nerd Girls,” an innovative program in which teams of female and minority engineering students build their confidence while developing solutions to critical 22
BU COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
PHOTO courtesy of Karen Panetta