Tsu-Jae King Liu Named President of National Academy of Engineering
Researcher, innovator, educator, and academic Tsu-Jae King Liu, Ph.D., is the new president of the National Academy of Engineering, or NAE. She began her six-year term July 1, 2025. She is the emerita dean of the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where she served for seven years, and was the first woman to hold the position in the college’s history. Dr. Liu is the co-inventor of FinFET, a revolutionary transistor design that powers the microprocessors in nearly every modern smartphone and computer. On news of her appointment, Dr. Liu stated, “I am honored and excited to serve as the next president of the NAE. More than ever, the U.S. needs knowledgeable and highly skilled technical professionals, innovators, and leaders to ensure the long-term welfare and prosperity of our nation. I look forward to seeing all that our engineering community will accomplish together to expand opportunities and drive innovations for the benefit of society.”
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Dr. Liu earned B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering at Stanford University. She joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1996 and served in several roles during her time there, including faculty director of the Microfabrication Laboratory, associate dean for research in the College of Engineering, faculty director of the Marvell Nanofabrication Laboratory, chair of the electrical engineering division, and chair of the electrical engineering and computer sciences department.
Read her insights about the challenges faced by scientists and researchers and the opportunities that lie ahead in this issue in the news article, “National Academy of Sciences Warns of a Decline in U.S. Leadership, Seeks Solutions.“
Peggy Whitson Inducted Into U. S. Astronaut Hall of Fame
Peggy Whitson, Ph.D., was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame as part of the 26th class of honorees to join the esteemed society. The ceremony took place at Kennedy Space Center. Dr. Whitson was honored for outstanding accomplishments in furthering NASA’s mission of exploration and discovery. This induction brings the total number of astronauts in the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame to 111.
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To be eligible, an astronaut must have made their first flight at least 15 years before the induction, must be a U.S. citizen, and must be a NASA-trained space shuttle commander, pilot, mission specialist, or an International Space Station, or ISS, commander or flight engineer who has orbited the Earth at least once. Dr. Whitson worked with NASA for 37 years and has flown on three NASA long-duration space flights. During her three NASA missions to the ISS, Dr. Whitson conducted 10 spacewalks totaling more than 60 hours.
After retiring from NASA, she joined Houston-based Axiom Space as its director of human flight, serving as commander of Axiom Mission 2 and 4. On Mission 2, she became the first woman commander of a private astronaut mission, adding to her accomplishments as the first woman commander of the ISS and the first woman and nonmilitary chief of NASA’s Astronaut Office. She recently commanded her second commercial human spaceflight mission to the ISS, on Axiom Mission 4, and has now amassed 695 days in space, more than any other American astronaut or woman astronaut in the world. At 65, she’s considered the United States’ most experienced astronaut.
Missouri S&T Chemical Engineering Professor Named ASEE President
Christi Luks, Ph.D., a chemical engineering faculty member at Missouri University of Science and Technology, or Missouri S&T, is now president of the American Society for Engineering Education, or ASEE. Dr. Luks began her term in June 2025. She has been a teaching professor and associate chair at Missouri S&T’s Linda and Bipin Doshi Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering since 2019.
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Dr. Luks joined the S&T faculty in 2014 as an associate teaching professor of chemical engineering. She has served in several capacities as a member of ASEE, including president-elect, vice president for professional interest councils, and vice president for member affairs.
“I feel honored to serve as ASEE president because the organization’s mission to advance innovation, excellence, and access at all levels of engineering education is something I truly believe in,” she said in a press release. “It’s important to me to represent educators who are dedicated to preparing the next generation of engineers, and I look forward to working together to strengthen engineering education.”
Before working at Missouri S&T, she served as a faculty member at The University of Tulsa for more than two decades, first as a research associate and adjunct professor, and then as an applied associate professor of chemical engineering. Dr. Luks earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and a master’s degree in applied mathematics at The University of Tulsa and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at Texas A&M University. Read her tips on how to become an excellent communicator of science, research, and engineering topics in the feature “Be an Attention-Grabber,” in SWE Magazine’s Summer 2025 issue.
Planetary Scientist Michele Dougherty Is UK’s First Woman Astronomer Royal
Michele Dougherty, Ph.D., a planetary scientist and professor of space physics at Imperial College in London, is the new Astronomer Royal in the United Kingdom. She is the first woman to hold the title in its 350-year history, and the 16th individual to occupy this position. She takes over from Martin Rees, who is retiring after 30 years.
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The Astronomer Royal position was first created to calculate a ship’s longitude at sea when out of sight of land. The position was based at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. The role today is an honorary one, held by a renowned astronomer who advises the monarchy on astronomical matters and promotes the value of astronomical science to the public.
Born in South Africa, Dr. Dougherty earned a Ph.D. at the University of Natal in 1988. She moved to Germany on a fellowship and joined Imperial College London in 1991. She was the principal investigator for the magnetometer instrument on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and now leads the magnetometer team on the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, launched in April 2023.
Dr. Dougherty has been a fellow of The Royal Astronomical Society since 2012 and serves as executive chair of its science and technology facilities council, overseeing its major national research infrastructure and science funding strategy since January 2025. She is also president-elect of the Institute of Physics and will formally assume her role as president in October 2025.
ASME Board of Governors Elects Two SWE Members
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, or ASME, has elected Society of Women Engineers members Nelia Mazula and Parisa Saboori, Ph.D., to serve as members of its board of governors for a three-year term that ends June 2028.
Mazula, a SWE senator and a life member of both SWE and ASME, is a global account manager for Siemens and has more than 20 years of experience in the engineering and engineering software industries. She started her career as an engineer for a multibillion-dollar natural gas project across Mozambique and South Africa. She was an early employee for two software startups purchased by Siemens.
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She is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the Society of Petroleum Engineers, and a lifetime member of the National Society of Black Engineers. Mazula holds five software patents, for which she was featured as a Woman of Change in the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum. She is a certified professional project manager. Mazula holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Arizona State University and an international MBA from Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires.
Dr. Saboori is an ASME fellow and a Distinguished Lasallian Educator. She serves as a professor and chair of the mechanical engineering department at Manhattan University, as well as vice chair for strategic planning at the university. She co-founded the Mechanical Engineering Women’s Group at Manhattan College, a platform for addressing the social and professional challenges that women often encounter in mechanical engineering. Dr. Saboori has made significant contributions to women’s sports medicine, studying anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, injuries in women athletes and designing a knee brace to reduce ACL and other leg injuries.
Dr. Saboori’s involvement in ASME, from which she received the 2023 Outstanding Student Section Advisor Award, includes membership in the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition steering committee, the committee on organization and rules, and the space exploration and habitats technology group. She earned a Master of Science degree and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at The City University of New York. Read about her efforts to support women engineering students in the feature article “Representation Matters” in the SWE Magazine 2024 State of Women in Engineering issue.
Structural Engineering Society of New Zealand Names First Woman Life Member
The Structural Engineering Society of New Zealand, or SESOC, has named Michelle Grant a life member. She is a director and partner at LGE Consulting, based in Masterton, in Wairarapa. She is the first woman engineer to earn this recognition. Grant is a chartered professional engineer with experience in both structural design and project management. She is known for her leadership on matters pertaining to structural engineering and small practice management, and for promoting high professional standards.
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Grant developed the instructional seminar “Ten tips for better design of low-rise structures” to help upskill engineers working in this specialized area. She has been active with SESOC, serving on the management committee since 2016, as vice president in 2019, and president in 2021.
Engineering New Zealand, the country’s professional body for engineering since 1914, awarded Grant the MacLean Citation in 2024, recognizing her for exceptional and distinguished service to the engineering profession and the society. She helped develop Engineering New Zealand’s report, “Quality issues in the building system — overcoming inadequate structural engineering design.”
Grant earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at the University of Technology Sydney. After graduating, she served as a site engineer in construction, working in project management on large-scale infrastructure projects in Australia. Her structural engineering career started in 2008, when she worked on residential and commercial projects throughout New Zealand.
Norah Patten is First Irish Person in Space
Norah Patten, Ph.D., is set to become the first person from Ireland to go to space as part of an international mission when she joins Kellie Gerardi of the United States and Shawna Pandya, M.D., of Canada as crew members aboard Virgin Galactic’s new Delta Class Spaceship. This is part of a space mission organized by the U.S.-based International Institute for Astronautical Sciences, or IIAS, anticipated to take place in 2026.
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Dr. Patten is an aeronautical engineer and bioastronautics researcher with IIAS. She authored the children’s book Shooting for the Stars and is a STEM advocate involved in microgravity research, commercial spacesuit testing, and emergency operations.
Dr. Patten earned a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering at the University of Limerick and has participated in Enterprise Ireland’s New Frontiers, a nationwide program providing support for startup founders. She works as a commercial manager at the Dublin-based space-tech company Réaltra Space Systems Engineering, and has previously worked for The Boeing Company and Bell Labs. She participated in the International Space University’s Space Studies Program, holding several roles, including global faculty member and chair of both the space management and business department and the space humanities department. National airline Aer Lingus has pledged its support through a two-year partnership, ensuring Dr. Patten can travel between her home in Ireland and her research base in North America as she prepares for her historic space mission.
Doudna, Mahboob Among Liberty Science Center’s Genius Award Honorees
Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., and Roya Mahboob, founder of the all-girl Afghan Dreamers Robotics Team, are two of the Genius Award honorees recognized by the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey. The center is dedicated to inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers. Both were celebrated for their extraordinary work in their respective fields at the organization’s Genius Gala, which serves as its largest fundraiser for STEM education in underserved communities.
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Dr. Doudna received the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry for co-inventing CRISPR, the revolutionary gene-editing technology. She is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair in biomedical and health sciences and a professor of biochemistry, biophysics, and structural biology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Doudna is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, a senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes, and the founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a member of the Royal Society. Read a review of Dr. Doudna’s biography The Code Breaker in SWE Magazine’s State of Women in Engineering 2022 issue.
Mahboob is CEO of Afghan Citadel Software Co. and the Digital Citizen Fund, which supports digital literacy for women and children in developing countries. She is one of the first women to serve as a tech chief executive in Afghanistan and is an advocate for women’s rights.
Mahboob is credited with championing the formation of the famed all-girl Afghan robotics team, the Afghan Dreamers. The team has won several recognitions since forming in 2017. Mahboob is developing plans to construct STEM schools in remote places to offer tech education to high school girls in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Nepal. She was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2013. Read a review of “Rule Breakers,” the movie based on the Afghan Dreamers, in SWE Magazine’s Summer 2025 issue.
UCF Faculty, Alumna Recognized in Forbes 50 Over 50
Carolina Cruz-Neira, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Simulation and Training, or IST, at University of Central Florida, or UCF, and Yvette Kanouff, a partner in venture capital, or VC, firm JC2 Ventures, and a UCF mathematics alumna, are among 200 honorees recognized in the Forbes 50 Over 50 Class of 2025. This fifth edition of the annual list of entrepreneurs, artists, wealth-builders, and inventors spotlights women of influence in the U.S. across four categories: lifestyle, impact, innovation, and investment.
Dr. Cruz-Neira is the Agere Chair Professor of computer science at UCF and was named to the list’s innovation category in recognition of her groundbreaking work in virtual reality, or VR. She pioneered the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, or CAVE, an immersive virtual reality system that allows multiple people to have the same experience in the same space. At UCF’s IST, she is part of an internationally recognized interdisciplinary institute conducting basic and applied human-centric research that affects nearly all sectors of industry and government, spanning national defense, education, and manufacturing.
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Dr. Cruz-Neira is a pioneer in the areas of VR, digital twins, and interactive visualization, having created and deployed a variety of technologies that have become standard tools in industry, government, and academia. Her open-source contributions have enabled the development of highly sophisticated VR systems globally.
She was inducted into the inaugural Augmented World Expo XR Hall of Fame in 2024 — one of only 22 researchers selected — joining an elite international group of 100 researchers, entrepreneurs, artists, advocates, and others selected for building the augmented reality and VR industry. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the first person inducted to its membership for immersive technologies and VR.
Among Dr. Cruz-Neira’s many accolades are the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE, VR Achievement Award and the International Digital Media & Arts Society Distinguished Career Award. She is a member of the IEEE VR Academy, an IEEE fellow, an Association for Computing Machinery, or ACM, Computer Pioneer, and was cited in the U.S. Congressional Record as a Distinguished Leader in Central Florida. She earned a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering at Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas, Venezuela, and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Kanouff was recognized in the investment category of the Forbes 50 Over 50 for her efforts to empower startups to drive economic growth, job creation, and innovation through her role as a partner at JC2 Ventures, where she is responsible for technology strategy and engineering relationships. She previously led the service provider business at Cisco Systems, has held president and C-suite roles at companies such as Cablevision and Time Warner, and pioneered technologies contributing to MPEG and encoding standards, content distribution networks, video streaming, and the DVD.
Kanouff has received several industry awards including the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Emmy for Engineering and Technology and the National Cable and Television Association’s Vanguard Award for Leadership in Science and Technology. She is a Streaming Video Technology Alliance Industry fellow, one of only seven industry fellows globally to receive the honor.
Kanouff holds several patents and serves on company and industry boards including the Syndeo Institute at the Cable Center, a nonprofit for leadership development, education, and collaboration in the connectivity, content, and entertainment business; and Entegris, a supplier of advanced materials and process solutions for the semiconductor, life sciences, and other high-tech industries.
Kanouff earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in mathematics from UCF, serves on the College of Sciences dean’s advisory board, and received an honorary doctoral degree from the university during the College of Sciences spring 2025 commencement, where she was the guest speaker.
“We are in an era of innovation and transformation in technology and in how we work, play, and live,” she said in her speech. “I am fortunate to have started my career during times of great innovation, and you have such an opportunity today.”
