Florence DiStefano Hudson SWE Scholarship (Est. 2023)
Florence DiStefano Hudson was born on May 3, 1959 in Port Jefferson, New York. She was raised by her maternal grandparents, Rose and Joseph DiStefano, as Florence’s mother died at childbirth.
Florence knew at a very young age that she wanted to be an aerospace engineer, as her brother Frank would wake her up early in the morning to watch the Apollo missions take off. She remembers thinking “that is so cool”…then one day she thought, “how do they do that? How to they get up there? How do they land safely?” That’s when she became an aspiring aerospace engineer.
Florence attended school in Centereach, Long Island, NY. She graduated as Salutatorian at Centereach High School in 1976, when she won a SWE scholarship to attend Princeton University to major in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. She also received scholarships from Grumman Aerospace Corporation, Princeton University, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. To complement her passion for math and science in high school, she enjoyed multiple extracurricular activities including being co-captain of the Cougarettes kickline, a Junior Varsity Cheerleader, President of the Honor Society, Math Team, Marching Band, Concert Band, Spanish Club and danced tap and ballet.
She received her Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at Princeton University in 1980. She enjoyed summer internships at Grumman Corporation where she worked on US Navy aircraft, NASA solar power satellite programs, and the Space Shuttle program. She met Yvonne Brill, the SWE collegiate Section Mentor at Princeton University, and Yvonne became her mentor for life. The SWE Brill Family Scholarship biography provides more information about Yvonne who was a pioneering rocket scientist in the 1940s. Yvonne helped Florence find a summer job at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1979, where Florence designed an In Situ Propellant Production System (ISPP) to enable sample return missions from Jupiter’s Galilean Satellites.
After graduating from Princeton, she decided to go into the Information Technology industry and worked for Hewlett Packard in California. She returned to New York in 1981 to work for IBM, where she rose to Vice President of Strategy and Marketing and Chief Technology Officer, retiring in 2015 after more than 33 years. While at IBM she earned Executive Education diplomas from Harvard University in Strategic Leadership, and from Columbia University in Finance and Accounting. She became Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Internet2, a Research and Education Network, and subsequently was invited to be Special Advisor to the NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence at Indiana University. She was recruited from her Board position at the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub at Columbia University to become their Executive Director in 2020, where she still works today on projects funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Transportation Federal Highway Authority to enable data science education, and orchestrate data-fueled innovation with industry, academia, nonprofits and government partners worldwide.
Florence met her husband George Hudson when both worked at IBM in 1981, and they had two children Ryan born in 1992 and Kristen born in 1993. Kristen enjoyed attending SWE conferences with her Mom, and met U.S. Astronauts Sally Ride and Bonnie Dunbar. When Kristen was in High School she gave Florence an Astronaut Barbie and Computer Scientist Barbie as gifts and her high school friends were shocked, but she said she knew her Mom would love them, and of course Florence did.
Florence’s SWE career began when she was awarded a SWE scholarship in high school. She was President of the SWE section at Princeton University in 1978, and years later was speaking at a SWE event at Princeton University when Yvonne Brill came up to her and said she loved Florence’s talk – and Florence said “I was talking about you”. Yvonne invited Florence to work on the SWE Archives committee. Florence was appointed to be the first Special Director on the SWE Board Directors as the VP of Strategic Planning in 2005 while on an Executive-on-Loan appointment while an IBM Vice President. She was elected to the SWE Board of Trustees in 2013-2015. While Special Director on the Board she developed strategies for Junior SWE to build the SWE pipeline – now known as SWENext – and the SWE international strategy to broaden SWE’s positive impact around the world. Florence received the SWE Upward Mobility Award in 2008.
As the first in her family to attend college, and being both a rocket scientist and a cheerleader, Florence knows what it means to feel different and underappreciated. She experienced validation and encouragement from SWE members and her high school scholarship, and she wants to provide that same validation and encouragement to inspire other young women to pursue their dreams to be an engineer.
Number Available: 1
Class: Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, Graduate
Major: Any
Amount: $1000
