Hosted by Hope College WiSE (Women in Science & Engineering)

Hope students, faculty, staff and the public are invited to attend this panel discussion to hear the stories of five women in STEM and to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. 

PANELIST: Sonali Agrawal, Product Lead, Systems Engineering- Emerging Technologies at Gentex
BIO: Sonali Agrawal joined Gentex 10 years ago as a systems engineer. She has been a key player in many of our most complex products including the Full Display Mirror, Digital Video Recorder, HomeLink Connect, and SmartBeam Gen4. Recently, she was promoted to Lead Product Systems Engineer for our new line of medical products. “The company has been focusing on developing medical as another pillar of technology. With this new role, my team and I will be responsible for launching medical programs like medical smart lighting and eSight glasses,” Sonali explained. “I have always focused on launch programs, and now as we focus on medical, I get to work directly with external customers as well as increased collaboration with departments within Gentex such as the design studio and the hardware, software, and mechanical groups.” https://www.gentex.com/post/sonali-agrawal-employee-spotlight

PANELIST: Dr. Carolina Avendano, Research Business Intelligence, Systems, and Operations Director at Notre Dame
BIO: Carolina Avendano serves as the Strategic Projects Program Director for Notre Dame Research Administration and Compliance (NDRAC). She works closely with and supports the director in managing program priorities, initiatives, and activities. Carolina comes to NDRAC with more than 10 years of experience in research administration and collaborative research efforts; prior to joining NDRAC, she was the Director of Research Operations for the Children’s Environmental Health Initiative. Before coming to Notre Dame in 2020, Carolina held positions as the Director of the Interdisciplinary Research Support Office, and the Director of Programs and Operations for the Office of STEM Engagement at Rice University. Carolina holds a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Texas A&M University, and a B.S. in Chemistry from Viterbo University in La Crosse, WI. https://research.nd.edu/people/carolina-avendano/

PANELIST: Dr. Erika Calvo-Ochoa, Assistant Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at Hope College
BIO: Dr. Erika Calvo-Ochoa is a neuroscientist who studies neural regeneration and repair in the olfactory system of zebrafish. She earned a BSc in Biomedical Research and a PhD in Neuroscience both from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). She did research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and then conducted her postdoctoral work at Western Michigan University. She completed a research fellowship in Tokyo Japan and then joined Hope in 2020, where she teaches classes in the Neuroscience program. She has mentored 34 research students, some of whom are currently in grad school and med school across the country. https://hope.edu/directory/people/calvo-ochoa-erika

PANELIST: Pujitha Mannaru, MS, Research Scientist at Gentex
BIO: Pujitha Mannaru received her BE in Electronics and Communications Engineering from PES Institute of Technology – South, India in 2013 and her MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Connecticut in 2020. She worked on several research projects in collaboration with the US Naval Research Laboratory and Comcast Corporation during her time at UCONN, where she picked up a wide variety of skills in data science, machine learning, statistics, and computational methods. She is currently a Machine Learning Research Scientist at Gentex Corporation. Her research interests include human machine interaction, chemometrics, applied machine learning, and signal processing.

PANELIST: Ratchaneekorn “RC” Luten, Chemistry Team Manager at Gentex
BIO: Ratchaneekorn Luten, or "RC" for short was born and raised in Thailand. After graduating from Chulalongkorn University, she started her career in 1996 as a technical service engineer for an international glass company, Guardian Industries. This was a new plant that manufactured tinted float glass. After 5 years at Guardian, there was an opportunity to come to the States to develop a new product at Guardian’s Science and Technology Center in Carleton, Michigan. The primary project was to develop a durable, monolithic solar control coating for hot and humid climate applications. RC moved to West Michigan in 2006 and pursued her master's degree in Engineering and started a new job at Gentex Corporation as an Industrial Engineer for the Applied Materials department. RC completed her master's degree in 2010 and transitioned to another team at Gentex in 2020 as a Chemistry Team Manager. She enjoys finding opportunities for improvements in her area of responsibility and providing highly accurate data to her internal customers. RC loves to travel and enjoys cooking and baking.