AAAS Names SWE Past President Jessica Rannow an Honorary Fellow
Jessica Rannow, senior program manager with KPI Solutions and past president of the Society of Women Engineers (2016-2017), is among the newly announced 2024 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS. She receives the honor in recognition of her distinguished service to the society and for sustained efforts in broadening participation in engineering.
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Rannow joins 470 honorary fellows in this latest cohort who were recognized for their efforts in advancing science or its applications in service to society across several disciplines. Fellows receive a certificate and a gold and blue rosette pin, which represents science and engineering, to commemorate their election. They are also featured in the AAAS journal Science.
Rannow has been a SWE member since her first year as an industrial engineering student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received SWE’s Distinguished New Engineer Award in 2009 and the Emerging Leader in Logistics and Procurement Award in 2011. Rannow served the Society as director of professional excellence, as Region G governor for two terms, and in many other leadership roles on the section, region, and Society levels throughout three decades of membership.
Rannow also served as podcast host on several episodes of Diverse: a SWE podcast during her presidency. Recently she discussed the lessons she learned from a layoff, LinkedIn strategies for career rebounds, and addressing pivots in one’s professional journey on episode 318, “How to Navigate Layoffs in Engineering.” Visit podcast.swe.org or listen wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
UCLA Associate Professor Named Senior Member of NAI
Nasim Annabi, Ph.D., an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, was named a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors, or NAI, this year. She was formally inducted into the academy during its annual conference in June in Atlanta. In bestowing the recognition, the academy cited her “achievements as an academic inventor and rising leader in the field, her success in patents, licensing, and commercialization, and her dedication to developing technologies that have made, or aspire to make, a real impact on society.”
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Among Dr. Annabi’s many accolades are the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Biomaterials, the 2020 Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum Young Investigator Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the Biomaterials Science Lectureship Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry in the U.K.
She is among 162 emerging inventors (the largest cohort to date) from 64 institutions named to the academy’s 2025 senior member class for their work on the development and commercialization of groundbreaking technologies that can tackle the world’s most pressing issues, improve quality of life across society, and advance the economy. Collectively, senior members in this year’s class are named inventors on more than 1,200 U.S. patents.
Dr. Annabi earned a B.S. and an M.S. in chemical engineering at Science and Research University, Iran, and a Ph.D. in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Sydney, Australia. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School.
Professor and Alumna Receive Ontario Professional Engineers Awards
University of Toronto Professor Emily Moore, Ph.D., and alumna Nancy Hill received Ontario Professional Engineers Awards from the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, or OSPE. Dr. Moore was awarded the Management Medal for innovative management practices contributing significantly to an engineering achievement. Hill received the Entrepreneurship Medal for applying new technologies or innovative approaches that have enabled new companies to get started.
Dr. Moore joined U of T in 2018 as an associate professor and director of the Troost Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering, or Troost ILead, at the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. There she developed new curricular and co-curricular programs such as training for students in networking and conversation, persuasive communication, and organizational culture. She also taught and conducted research on engineering leadership. Dr. Moore earned a bachelor’s in engineering chemistry at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, and a doctorate in physical chemistry at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. With a career spanning almost three decades across industry and academia, she has received several recognitions, including the Society for Chemical Industry Canada’s Kalev Pugi Award for industrial research. She was also named one of 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining by Women in Mining UK.
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Hill is the co-founder of an intellectual property law firm and an award-winning licensed engineer and lawyer. She earned a bachelor’s in civil engineering at U of T and a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Ottawa. She has served as president of Engineers Canada and president of Professional Engineers Ontario, or PEO. She also served as the chair of PEO’s Women-in-Engineering committee and as a volunteer at U of T and Toronto Metropolitan University. Hill speaks and teaches at universities and professional engineering organizations, educating engineers about their intellectual property rights. She has been inducted as a fellow of Engineers Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering, as well as a companion in the PEO Order of Honour, which is the organization’s highest volunteer recognition program. The honor is bestowed on individuals who have served the engineering profession for at least 20 years and who have profoundly influenced the engineering profession.
Deja Perkins Named Young Conservationist of the Year
Deja Perkins, a Ph.D. candidate in geospatial analytics at North Carolina State University’s Center for Geospatial Analytics at the College of Natural Resources, was named Young Conservationist of the Year by the North Carolina Wildlife Federation. The award recognizes individuals under age 30 who exemplify leadership, innovation, and dedication to conservation goals that advance North Carolina’s wildlife, habitats, and natural resources. The honor is part of the organization’s 60th Annual Governor’s Conservation Achievement Awards.
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As part of her academic focus, Perkins uses mapping and open-source geospatial tools to investigate environmental inequity in urban spaces and advocates for equitable access to nature by promoting neighborhood explorations. She recently successfully defended her dissertation, “The Geography of Participation: A Geospatial Analysis of Socio-spatial Gaps in U.S. Participatory Science,” which examined patterns of participation in volunteer-based environmental monitoring and how socio-spatial disparities shape the data produced by such efforts.
Aside from her academic pursuits, Perkins co-hosts the podcast Bring Birds Back and is the founder of Naturally Wild LLC, a community-based organization that provides low-cost birding workshops, guided nature walks, and youth programming for urban communities. In 2022, she was recognized by then-Gov. Roy Cooper as a Black STEM Leader as part of a Black History Month observance.
Perkins earned a Master of Science in fisheries and wildlife conservation biology at North Carolina State University and a Bachelor of Science in environmental science, natural resources and plant sciences, with a wildlife concentration at Tuskegee University in Alabama.
Four Women Researchers Among SIAM’s 2025 Class of Fellows
Jennifer Chayes, Ph.D., from the University of California, Berkeley; Elizabeth M. Cherry, Ph.D., and Katya Scheinberg, Ph.D., both from Georgia Institute of Technology; and Andrea Walther, Ph.D., from Humboldt University of Berlin, were among 25 new fellows announced by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, or SIAM, as part of the 2025 class. Members are nominated in recognition of their outstanding research and service to the community in helping to advance the fields of applied mathematics, computational science, and data science.
Dr. Chayes is dean of the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society at University of California, Berkeley. SIAM recognized her for contributions to mathematical physics, probability theory, computer science, and network science, with broad applications. She is credited with leading the establishment of the college, which was the first new college at Berkeley in more than 50 years. Dr. Chayes also received the 2015 John von Neumann Prize from SIAM.
She is a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, information, mathematics, and statistics, and one of the inventors of the field of graphons, which are widely used for large-scale network machine learning. Dr. Chayes earned a bachelor’s in biology and physics at Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in mathematical physics at Princeton University. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Leiden University in the Netherlands.
Dr. Cherry is an associate professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Computational Science and Engineering, or CSE, and an associate dean for graduate education. SIAM cited her contributions to mathematical and computational modeling of cardiac action potentials, from single cells to realistic 3D structures, as well as her extensive service to the SIAM community. Her study of the electrical behavior of cardiac cells and tissue using computer models and simulations improves the understanding of cardiac dynamics in normal and diseased states. Dr. Cherry designs advanced strategies for preventing and treating arrhythmias using these tools.
She has been involved in SIAM since her days as a graduate student. She earned a B.S. in mathematics at Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in computer science at Duke University. Dr. Cherry is the fifth faculty member from CSE to be selected a SIAM fellow.
Dr. Scheinberg is a Coca-Cola Foundation chair and professor at the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering and a Gary C. Butler Family Foundation faculty fellow. She was selected by SIAM for foundational contributions to derivative-free optimization and optimization applications in data science and dedicated service to the optimization community. Dr. Scheinberg was born in Moscow and earned an undergraduate degree in operations research at the Lomonosov Moscow State University. She earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. in operations research at Columbia University. She taught at Cornell University and Lehigh University and taught a doctorate-level course on optimization and machine learning at both institutions. She is co-author of the book Introduction to Derivative Free Optimization.
Dr. Walther is the chair of mathematical optimization at the Institute of Mathematics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, at Humboldt University of Berlin. SIAM recognized her for her contributions to algorithmic optimization and automatic differentiation. Dr. Walther is also chair of the Berlin Mathematics Research Center, or MATH+, and a faculty member of the Berlin Mathematical School. She earned a degree in mathematics and economy at University Bayreuth and a Ph.D. at Technical University Dresden. She has been a member of SIAM since 2011, was elected to the SIAM Council in 2023, and is a section editor of SIAM Journal of Scientific Computing.
Anita Ho-Baillie Wins Australian Space Award
Anita Ho-Baillie, Ph.D., the John Hooke Chair of Nanoscience at the Sydney Nanoscience Hub, School of Physics Faculty of Science at The University of Sydney, received the Academic of the Year Award at the sixth annual Australian Space Awards. The awards program recognizes leading professionals and businesses driving change across Australia’s space sector. She joins 28 winners in various award categories who were chosen from more than 160 finalists this year. In 2024, Dr. Ho-Baillie was a finalist in the same category and received the Scientist of the Year Award.
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Dr. Ho-Baillie is an Australian Research Council future fellow and founder of EurokaPower, where she is creating low-cost, next-generation, space-grade solar cells. She is an adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales, where she earned a bachelor’s and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. Her research interest is to generate clean energy by engineering materials and devices at the nanoscale level to integrate solar cells onto all kinds of surfaces.
Dr. Ho-Baillie received the Australian Academy of Science Nancy Millis Medal in 2024 and the Royal Society of NSW Warren Prize in 2022 for her pioneering work in developing next-generation solar cells. In 2021, she was a finalist in the Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Scientific Research and was named a Top Sustainable Energy Researcher in Australia by the Australian newspaper annual Research magazine awards. The same year, she received the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Research Engagement & Innovation at the University of Sydney and an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship.
She is a fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of New South Wales, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. She is also a member of The University of Sydney’s Nano Institute, conducting groundbreaking research in nanoscience for global impact, and the Net Zero Institute, engaged in solution-based research to help achieve global net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. She regularly speaks to students about STEM fields at National Science Week events.
