Advocating Women in Engineering Award

Hang Loi

3M

For enthusiastic leadership driven by diversity, equity, and inclusion values; for being an agile and embracive decision-maker; and for helping women in STEM turn their aspirations into reality.

As a child refugee and immigrant, Hang Loi observed her parents model the benefits and privileges of hard work, education, and persistence. She knew that she wanted a challenging career and decided to pursue engineering. Loi graduated with honors from Case Western Reserve University and holds a B.S. in chemical engineering and a B.A. in music.

Today, Loi serves as a global supplier relationship manager with the Transportation and Electronics Business Group at 3M. She has amassed 30 years of engineering experience in new product development and commercialization in several 3M business lines. She is among the top 100 technical women at 3M and holds 17 global patents. Her leadership and technical contributions have been recognized with 12, 3M corporate awards.

A purpose-driven leader, Loi seeks to bring more equitable opportunity and diverse representation into the workplace. She actively volunteers with organizations that support these values, including the Society of Women Engineers, the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE), and 3M’s Asian employee resource group (A3CTION), which boasts more than 700 members.

Loi learned about SWE through 3M and joined at the professional level. She has chaired the SWE professional development committee and hosted bimonthly conversations on topics pertinent to women engineers. Loi also sought occasions to meet and mentor early-career women to promote inclusion and belonging and has given presentations about women in leadership, career advancement, and the imperative of diversity in the workplace, among other topics.

Within 3M A3CTION, she has taken on leadership roles of increasing responsibility. She currently serves as the 2022 Chair and works with other 3M diversity, equity, and inclusion employee resource groups to push for an all-encompassing equitable work culture, build supportive communities, and educate the broader company. She led the 2020 Virtual Leadership Summit featuring 24 speakers over two days that was attended via web streaming by more than 3,000 employees across the world. Loi also works closely with 3M leadership to partner with SASE to participate in its annual national conference to recruit Asian American talent, particularly women and Southeast Asians who are more economically underserved, and U.S.-born Asians who may not hold advanced STEM degrees more typically hired to fill the ranks of Asian talent at her company.

She connects her many communities with growth opportunities that build competencies and expand personal networks. In addition to her professional awards, Loi has been honored with awards that speak to her commitment to advancing, mentoring, and encouraging the success of underrepresented women engineers. She has received the SWE Patent Recognition Award (2020, 2022) and the SWE Asian Connections Affinity Group Outstanding Member Award (2021). In 2021, Loi was one of only four women recipients of the SASE Professional Achievement Award, out of a total of 22 recipients.

The Woodbury, Minnesota, resident is a proud mother of two daughters in early STEM careers.