Formula for Success

Four young alumnae bring their unique talents, passions and perspectives to engineering

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATH FIELDS HAVE made progress in the last 50 years in terms of the number of women working in those fields. But one of those fields, engineering, is still at a workforce of just 15% women in 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Granted, that’s five times as many as in 1970, but it can still definitely feel like a boys’ club. These young alumnae have found their places in it.

Brianna Pinckney ’10-’12

What she does: Pinckney is the director of business development for Target Building Construction Inc. located right outside of Philadelphia. Previously, she worked at Turner Construction, one of the country’s largest general contracting firms, working on complex renovations and unique new building projects. Now her role is to capture new business for her company. “It’s a great combination of my technical skills and business,” she said. “I really like sitting down and enjoying a lunch with a client and seeing a project go from an idea to developing an amazing infrastructure. You’re proud of your team every time you drive by it.”

Why engineering: As a child in South Jersey, Pinckney took dance lessons in Philadelphia. Three days a week, her parents drove across the Ben Franklin Bridge, a suspension bridge crossing the Delaware River. “I was just so amazed that the bridge was holding us up,” she said. “I was intrigued by its structure. I was curious. I was just so curious.” Her parents sent her to engineering camps at Drexel and Temple universities in Philadelphia, where she also learned that she liked working with people and watching projects develop over time.

Her toughest challenge: “Being a Black woman in a predominantly white male industry has been a challenge my parents prepared me for ever since I was set on becoming an engineer. It was vital that I found my voice and gained respect from my teammates, subcontractors and design team early on to ensure that I was taken seriously and had earned my right to be here just like everyone else. As a leader on site and in the office, I have to be tough with the decisions that I have to make, and I have to make those decisions without a smile.” To navigate her world, she has leaned on advisers and mentors that she has met during her career. “I don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and ask what someone thinks to help me reach the best solution.”

Natalie Foster ’15-’19

What she does: Foster is a third-year law student at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and a summer associate in the patent practice of the law firm Dentons Bingham Greenebaum. She studies intellectual property law – patents, trademarks and copyright. Patents protect inventors from having others make money off of their ideas. In order to sit for the bar exam in patent law, candidates must have a science or engineering background.

Her engineering passion: Pinckney is enthusiastic about mentoring young women of color, both broadly and individually, working with the National Society of Black Engineers and Brighter Horizons, an organization that focuses on exposing and preparing first-generation students to attend a four-year college or university. “A lot of minority students don’t think about being a scientist or an engineer,” she said. “I really think that’s where it starts.” Brighter Horizons has matched her with individual high school students, and she has mentored three since joining the organization in 2019. One student just entered Thomas Jefferson University to become a nurse.

Why patent law: As a chemical engineering major at the Swanson School of Engineering, she went on plant tours. “I realized I didn’t want to work in a plant all of my life. I like science and engineering, but it’s not what I thought it would be.” She explored other options and discovered patent law, which would allow her to put her technical background to use but enjoy an office environment. As a bonus, she discovered patent attorneys are in high demand not only with law firms, but also research universities and corporations that have their own in-house legal teams to secure patents for discoveries, inventions and novel processes. “I’m really looking forward to being in a firm when the first patent that I have drafted gets granted,” she said. “I think that will be very rewarding.”

Her greatest challenge: “There are not a lot of women in the intellectual property field,” she said, explaining that the gender breakdown mirrors that of engineering. In large law firms, new attorneys are expected to produce a certain number of billable hours per year, which can be more difficult to keep that expectation and balance family life with work, she said.

Her passion projects: In her first summer at a law firm in Lexington, she worked on some pro bono projects. “It was nice being able to use my ability with the law to give people an answer to the property question that they had,” she said. “There are all sorts of questions that people need to have answered that you can’t just Google.”

In her free time, she pursues something that she did at Pitt-Bradford as well, playing hockey. “It’s a total getaway with people from all walks of life and all ages,” she said. Playing hockey at Pitt-Bradford is where she met her fiancé, Brendan Beshock ’15-’17, a chemical engineer who is joining her in Lexington to work with the biotechnology research firm Alltech. planning a wedding for next summer.

Michelle Underwood ’10-’12

What she does: Underwood is a project manager at Nestle Health Science plant in suburban Pittsburgh, a plant that makes vitamins and supplements. She meets with clients and pulls together a team of scientists to create products – that can mean everything from formulating and assessing a supplement with certain claims to package design and production. “You have to have a technical background to work in this role,” she said. “I have to have an understanding of each part in the process.” Her favorite part of her job? “I really like to go to the store and see a product that I worked on for so long put on the shelf.”

Her greatest challenge: Her first job as an engineer involved plugging oil wells. “I am a young, small Middle Eastern woman, and I am often the only person who looks the way I do.” In the oil fields, that could put her in a tough position. “I had to go up to 60-year-oldmen and tell them what to do. I had to insist that either we do it my way, or we’re going home. I cried every day. It wasn’t a place for a woman.” Some colleagues and co-workers refused to talk with her or believe she was the site engineer. “I thought we were past that.” She said she is much happier now in a diverse environment, where many of her team members are women from diverse backgrounds. “The smells in the lunchroom are amazing.”

Her passion project: “I gutted my house and used all my engineering knowledge figuring out the plumbing and the HVAC myself,” she said. “It’s my real-life application. My whole team was myself and my family.”

Alexis DeFelippo ’15-’17

What she does: DeFelippo works as a lab specialist with BASF at a facility in Monaca, Pa. The plant specializes in latex adhesives for things like roofing shingles, flooring and those stickers that told us to stand six feet apart during the pandemic. She runs tests to see how sticky things are, particularly under different conditions, and how they might be changed.

Why materials science: DeFelippo started her studies at Pitt-Bradford thinking she would study mechanical engineering. She liked robotics and was good at math and science, so it seemed like a good fit for her. Once she got to the Pittsburgh campus and began upper-level classes in mechanical engineering, her interest waned. One of her professors talked to her about materials science, which included more chemistry, metallurgy and ceramics. “I was like, ‘That sounds sick,’” she said. “It was cool taking ceramics classes and thinking differently. You think of ceramics as something hard and brittle; they now have flexible ceramics that are used in aerospace or to insulate nuclear reactors. I had really missed being in the lab. It was very interactive.”

Her greatest challenge: “I had it in my head that I wanted to go into research and development,” she said. After graduating from the Swanson School of Engineering at Pitt, she got a job doing just that with glass. “It was boring. I have too much energy to be functioning slowly.” She was laid off during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, which she said was a blessing in disguise. “I’ve found my home here now in manufacturing. It never stops. You have to think on the fly. It’s a whole different vibe – so fast paced and always moving.” She said that atmosphere contributes to an environment of equality. “If you’re here, you’re here for a reason,” she said. “It’s because you can do the job.”

Her passion projects: No surprise, DeFelippo loves to keep busy and build things at home, too. She rebuilt a dirt bike that she rides using the mountain biking skills she developed in Bradford. And she also loves to sew and make clothes for her nieces. “I go into work and hang out with the boys all day, then I go home and sew.”