IEEE womEn In EngInEErIng magazInE DeCeMBeR 2013 36

tThe kids in Pasco, Washington, may not have exposure to the big city, but that didn’t stop them from participating in the 2013 Future Cities Challenge. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Software Engineer Cristina Marinovici mentored a team of middle school stu-dents from the Ellen Ochoa Middle School as they imagined, designed, and built cities of the future.

The year-long initiative gave stu-dents the chance to learn about engi-neering and to practice doing the things that engineers do—identifying issues, brainstorming ideas, designing solutions, testing, building, and shar-ing results. They planned their city of the future using SimCity software, researched engineering problems, and built scale models of their city out of recyclable materials.

For her leadership in Future Cities as well as her work with the students at Pasco’s Chiawana High School, Mari-novici was awarded PNNL’s Fitzner-Eberhardt Award.

A Sustainable Future CityPasco, in the southeast corner of Wash-ington State, is one of three cities that make up the Tri-Cities region of Wash-ington. Lewis and Clark camped in

Pasco in 1805, and the area, which has housed fur trappers and gold traders, evolved as a small railroad town with a large agricultural base. Many of the kids have not experienced life in a big city, and Marinovici’s first goal was to “get their imaginations to run wild.”

In one of her trips to the school she showed them “pictures of aqueducts and fancy architectural buildings like the Dubai skyscrapers, hotels with swimming pools, and fancy amenities.” Marinovici says, “they couldn’t believe that this was reality. They could not imagine.”

Even the things that they did see every day, they might not have noticed

or wondered about until the SimCity project. “Windmills are in our land-scape,” Marinovici says, “but the stu-dents don’t realize why they are here. It is interesting to have that discussion with them. That was the fun of the activity.”

The SimCity project helped the stu-dents to connect the things they saw outside with the requirements of the task. Marinovici says it was a joy to see them have the “a ha” moment: “You cannot put your waste collection point in the middle of the city. You cannot put the factories and plants that are pollut-ing near the housing. They were able to realize the best areas for residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural areas. For them, at first, it wasn’t real clear how they had to be separate. If you build a factory and it is polluting near a school, you lose points, your commu-nity gets sick, the city does not function properly.”

The big take-away for the students, though, was that they saw that engi-neers work on real life problems. Each week, Marinovici and her fellow group

Future Cities Ideas are “Sim”eringMarinovici serving as a middle school mentor

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2013.2280410

Date of publication: 11 November 2013

Cristina Marinovici (center), software engineer at PNNL, receives the Fitzner-Eberhardt Award from Jeff Estes and Elaine King.

Pipelining

Attractive Programs for Women

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of engineers explained who they were and what they were working on. This helped the students understand that there is a connection between the math and science they were learning in school and the career possibilities in the future.

In the first week of January they wrapped up the experiment and traveled to the state competition in Seattle.

Taking the Next StepMarinovici is also one of the initiators, supporters and participants of the IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) Next Step high school program, which provides information and guidance to young stu-dents pursuing STEM careers. At Chi-awana High School, Marinovici worked to dispel the idea that “engineers are geeky people.” A panel of engineers from WIE worked to show students the oppor-tunities in science, technology, engineer-ing, and mathematics fields; highlight the importance of education; and show students the breadth of the disciplines. “Envision an open discussion with the kids,” she says.

“The problem,” she adds, “is that they don’t know what an engineer is and what the differ-ent types of engineers are. So they talked about ‘Who designed this potato chip? Who designed this potato chip bag? Who designed this iPhone?’”

The high school students took some time to warm up, according to Marinovici. “They were a little uncom-

fortable at the beginning, wondering what their neighbors were thinking, but by the end, they were asking spe-cific questions. ‘Where should I go to become a person who builds engines? How do I find the schools that offer this type of engineering?’”

The high school students were not aware of the opportunities that were available to them, such as internships, local companies with job opportunities, and colleges oriented to certain engi-neering fields. “They have career guid-ance in schools, but maybe they aren’t asking those questions of the advisors,” Marinovici says.

The Push to Do BetterMarinovici grew up in Romania, where she attended both high school and college. She studied physics and chemistry in high school and wasn’t sure which direction she should go.

In Romania, she says, students worked hard and were competitive. “All the time you were openly told what grade you had received for your in-class

performance. The grade was not a secret. Thus, you knew

where everyone stood in the class. It was always a competition to do better, to excel, to pass the test with higher grades.”

Marinovici acknowl-edges that this is a dif-

ferent way of grading, but, she says, “You need to know

that you can do better, you need to be pushed to do better. That was the good thing back home in Romania. In middle

school classes we were pushed to do bet-ter, study more, be at the same level as everybody else.”

Marinovici, who earned a Ph.D. fel-lowship to study applied mathematics in the United States, did an internship with IBM for a year and a half before taking the job at PNNL.

As a software engineer with the Power Systems Group, Marinovici works on smart grid technology that could, through the use of new technology and taking better advantage of renewable energy and efficiency programs, sub-stantially decrease electric energy use and carbon emissions.

“It’s important,” Marinovici says, “to have the feeling that you are part of something that is going to have an impact on the future.”

—Katianne Williams

America’s Top Young ScientistKurup scores top prize

Ninth grader Deepika Kurup is the winner of the 2012 Discovery Educa-tion 3M Young Scientist Challenge, which earned her the title “America’s Top Young Scientist” and an award of US$25,000 for her work. Since 2008, Discovery Education and 3M have held an annual competition encouraging young innovators to develop solutions to everyday problems, competing for a title and cash prizes. At the final competition, the finalists shared their completed innovations with a panel of judges. In addition to presenting their prototypes, the ten finalists competed in two additional challenges in which they were asked to combine multiple 3M technologies to yield new solutions and to build a machine designed to turn on a light bulb using science and engineering principles. Finalists were evaluated on their scientific knowledge, creativity and use of 3M technology.

Marinovici speaks with students at the Ellen Ochoa Middle School during a Future Cities activity.

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Date of publication: 11 November 2013

The take-away

for students was that they saw that engineers work

on real-life problems.