SWENext High School Leadership Academy (SHLA)

Deysi Melgar came to the U.S. from Mexico at age 7 and developed a love for math. She also loved acting, singing, and dancing, and chose to attend a high school for performing arts, where she was drawn to the technical side of the theater. Deysi never considered a career in STEM, until her work on the PBS Emmy® and Peabody Award-winning TV series Design Squad. Deysi is a graduate of Wheaton College (Norton, MA) with a BA in Physics. Deysi works at Denver International Airport managing various airline ground operations. Her passion for aviation has led Deysi to obtain her private pilot’s certificate, with the end goal of one day flying private aircraft.  

With a bold dream, Alena has become the youngest young girl of color to ever intern at NASA. She is also using her voice by launching The Brown STEM Girl and she is also the founder of The Brown STEM Girl Foundation. Through The Brown STEM Girl, Alena has received eight proclamations declaring April 30th as Brown STEM Girl STEM in the City Day Honoring Women of Color in STEM. This day is also set aside to engage girls of color, ages 10-17 in STEM activities and will be hosted all across the United States of America.

Alena has received international recognition through her features on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, Good Morning America, The Kelly and Ryan Show, Black Entertainment Television, and a host of news outlets throughout the world. In addition, she has also been honored by the Phoenix Mercury (WNBA) as part of their Believe in Women campaign. With a clear vision, Alena is on the path to knock down doors for other brown STEM girls, just like her!

Dr. Jessica Marquez is a human systems engineer at NASA Ames Research Center. She leads a team of researchers, user interface designers, and software developers, who focus on developing the next generation of planning, scheduling, and execution tools for space exploration.

 Bri’Shae Anderson started with Turner in 2015 as a field engineer working in Charlotte, NC on a $90M project where she managed roughly 2M scope of work. Bri’Shae was recognized in 2015with the Emerging Leadership Award within Turner. In 2016, Bri’Shae was promoted to an Assistant Engineer in the Carolina Office along with a mentor of the Carolina’s Blueprint Group. During Bri’Shae’s mentor roles she had the pleasure of assisting new hires with becoming accustomed to working with the company and managing community service projects.

In 2019, Bri’Shae was promoted to Engineer on the International African American Museum in Charleston, SC. Along with mentoring young women in the Construction Management program at North Carolina A&T State University. She believes that we cannot be successful in life without helping the people coming up behind us. 

Kelsey Ellis is the Procurement Manager for Turner Chicago; she leads the procurement department for the Chicago office awarding about $200M annually. In 2020, the Chicago office had over 850 contracts across 66 projects.  She has worked at Turner for over nine years and worked on many high profile and complex projects including the San Diego New Central Library, Sempra Energy Headquarters, Ballpark Village, and the University of Chicago, Woodlawn Residential Commons, which varied from Commercial to Residential type projects.

Kelsey holds a degree in Structural Engineering, from University of California, San Diego. Kelsey currently leads Turner Habitat Chicago’s Women Build Team, which she has been participating in since 2017 building homes for women-lead households on the Southside of Chicago. She has a true passion for bringing more women into STEM and helping to develop younger female staff navigate their way through a career in construction and grow into future leaders.

Erica Shelton serves as Senior Cost Analyst for Turner’s Central Florida business unit, with overall responsibility for risk analysis and financial reporting. The projects that she is responsible for range from $1 Million to $1 Billion in revenue. As a Department Head of a four-member team, Erica works to supervise, evaluate, train, and further develop the department. In 2019, Erica led the successful training and implementation of SIE – a company-wide financial management initiative – across the Florida Business Unit. 

Erica holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Construction Management from Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, Colorado.  She started her career as an engineer in the Chicago Business Unit  at Turner and held several positions during her time there, including Project Manager, Superintendent, and Cost Analyst.  Erica participated in a variety of projects, including but not limited to interior buildouts, K-12 schools, and commercial medical buildings.  In 2017, Erica had the opportunity to transfer to the Orlando Business Unit, where she has held positions within the Finance and Procurement Departments. At Turner, Erica is actively involved in the Women Impacting Turner (WIT) Employee Resource Group.

Elise Nagy is an Engineer for Turner Construction. She currently is working on a $529 million dollar healthcare project in Cleveland, OH where she is managing the construction budget and multiple interiors subcontractors. Elise holds a Bachelors of Science in Construction Engineering from The University of Akron.

Sabrina Ransbarger is an Assistant Engineer at Turner Construction, and has been with the company for approximately three years. She started out with the Procurement group focusing on trade partner risk management and relationships, and quickly transitioned into the Operations side of the business in the Special Projects Division.

Sabrina’s passion for the construction industry started as a love for design and architecture growing up, leading her to pursue an undergraduate degree in Architectural Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. In the last two years, Sabrina has worked on various projects spanning from community centers to high-end commercial interiors to unique opportunities such as renovations at the Dallas Museum of Art. 

This session is supported by the generosity of Turner Construction

This “connect” session will provide an opportunity for students to connect online with peers and mentors in engineering, have conversations about careers in engineering and technology, get insight and advice from women in engineering. This session will focus on community work and leadership. 

Tina Steele, The FAFSA Guru has 30 years of experience working in higher education with expertise in financial aid. She has her Master’s Degree in Higher Education and has worked at both the public and private college levels directly in the financial aid office. She also spent 10 years facilitating college planning and financial aid workshops across the state of Maine for a federally funded grant program. She delivers numerous workshops and presentations on the topic of financial aid for a variety of businesses, organizations, and educational institutions.

She founded The FAFSA Guru 5 years ago after seeing the gap between student and family needs when it came to financial aid assistance and the services that were available to assist them. 

Speakers: SHLA Ambassadors