SEAS Center for Women in Engineering

Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, SEAS

Dr. Megan C. Leftwich is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at The George Washington University.  She holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University and a B.S.E. degree from Duke University.  Prior to joining GW, she was the Agnew National Security Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Lab from 2010 to 2012. Her current research interests include the fluid dynamics of rotating airfoils, high performance jetting for aquatic locomotion, unsteady activation for undulatory propulsion, and the fluid dynamics of human birth.  Prof. Leftwich has a deep interest in diversity in technical fields and STEM education from the first year through the Ph.D.  Professor Leftwich is an Office of Naval Research 2017 Young Investigator Award Recipient.  Additionally, she is the winner of the  2019 Early Career Researcher Award at George Washington University, the 2018 SEAS Dean’s Faculty Recognition Award, the 2017 SEAS Outstanding Young Researcher Award and the 2016 SEAS Outstanding Young Teacher Award.    Her work on unsteady propulsion has been profiled in over 20 popular media venues including: Wired, CNN's Great Big Story, the Smithsonian Magazine and the New York Times.

Associate Dean for Research, SEAS

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Lijie Grace Zhang has been appointed Associate Dean for Research in SEAS. Professor Zhang's Bioengineering Laboratory for Nanomedicine and Tissue Engineering applies a range of interdisciplinary technologies and approaches in additive manufacturing, nanotechnology, stem cells, tissue engineering, and drug delivery for various biomedical applications.

The main ongoing research projects include: integrating 3D/4D bioprinting and nanotechnology for complex cardiovascular, neural and musculoskeletal tissue regenerations; investigation of the influence of nano and chemical environments in directing stem cell differentiations for regenerative medicine; developing sustained drug formulations for long term and controlled drug release at disease or cancer sites; and developing novel 3D/4D tunable tissue models for cancer metastasis study and therapeutic discovery.

Professor of Computer Science, SEAS

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Dr. Poorvi Vora and her research group have developed the Athena election audit algorithm and software package, which has been integrated into Arlo, the main election audit software tool used by election officials. The Athena class of ballot polling audits decreases considerably the effort of election officials, and is likely to help make audits more popular among them. No ballot polling audits were performed for the 2020 general election, but pilot (non-binding and post-certification) ballot polling audits for Michigan and Pennsylvania are anticipated in early 2021, when it is hoped that Athena will be used. Dr. Vora’s collaborators are Dr. Filip Zagórski (Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Poland) and Neal McBurnett (independent software consultant). CS undergraduates Grant McClearn and Sarah Morin participated in all aspects of the work as well, and CS undergraduates Oliver Broadrick, Claire Furtick and Jay Grieve also played a role. The research is/was supported in part by National Science Foundation awards.

Professor of Biomedical Engineering, SEAS

Dr. Entcheva studies problems related to electrical activity in the heart, and she is developing a technique to expedite researchers’ ability to observe electrical activity across cardiac cells, including activity that can cause arrhythmias (abnormal heart rhythms), which can be lethal. She has taken a unique approach to it, borrowing an opto-genetic technique that is used more commonly in neuroscience.

Professor of Mechanical Engineering, SEAS

Dr. LeBlanc works to develop technologies that address the growing demand for energy, as well as to improve the energy efficiency of technologies that provide our energy services. In one of her current projects, she is working to understand the link between the technical performance of specific energy materials and systems, and the economic requirements for the technologies to make it out of the lab and into the market.

Professor of Systems Engineering, SEAS

Dr. Gralla studies decision making problems and develops models to reflect the structures and context of various systems in which decisions are made, and to figure out the right decision making approach based on that system. One system she studies is disaster response supply chains.

Dr. Shelly Heller
Founding Director, SEAS Center for Women in Engineering
Professor Emerita, Computer Science

Dr. Shelly Heller has spent her career breaking barriers and opening doors for women in STEM. She began her professional journey in the 1960s in the field of computer science, eventually earning her Ph.D and joined the faculty of the George Washington University in 1985. Over nearly four decades, Dr. Heller has served in numerous leadership roles at GW, including Associate Dean for Academic Affairs on the Mount Vernon Campus and Professor of Engineering and Applied Science.

As the founding director of the SEAS Center for Women in Engineering, Dr. Heller envisioned a community that not only welcomed women into engineering, but ensured they could thrive. Her leadership helped establish the Center’s commitment to fostering belonging, amplifying women’s voices, and creating pathways to success for the next generation of engineers.

Beyond her work at GW, Dr. Heller’s impact includes national research initiatives and programs focused on broadening participation in STEM, including efforts supported by the National Science Foundation. She also played a critical role in shaping GW’s Women’s Leadership Program and has mentored countless students and faculty members throughout her tenure.

A proud alumna of Stony Brook University, where she met her husband and began her STEM career, Dr. Heller continues to teach, advocate, and mentor. Her legacy is reflected in the thousands of women in engineering she has inspired to believe, boldly, that they belong.

Elizabeth Preston Brown and Louise Connolly

The first graduating class comprised six students.  Two of them were women:  Elizabeth Preston Brown and Louise Connolly. Mrs. Brown was a noted mathematician, and Ms. Connolly a noted geologist.

Mrs. Brown, a high school teacher, reserved part of her salary to “improve herself” and entered The Corcoran Scientific School, where she studied with mathematics professor James Howard Gore, verifying his calculations, a job classified as ‘computer’. According to an 1892 article from The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana), she was encouraged to enter a contest for a position at the Nautical Almanac. The newspaper notes “Within three hours after the examination began every man left the room vanquished by the astronomical and mathematics problems”. Miss Brown answered every question and solved every problem in less than five hours.

Ms. Connolly, also a high school teacher, received two degrees from the school. She was regarded as one of the city’s most progressive teachers and often spoke at meetings of the National Education Association and the Geographic Society.

Marjorie Rhodes Townsend

Marjorie Rhodes Townsend was the first woman to graduate from GW with an engineering degree. Born in 1930, she enrolled in college at 15 and received her degree in 1951. In 1957 she told The Washington Post, “The thought seems to lurk in people’s minds that women go into a man’s field to catch a husband. In fact, there was a wager on the line when I went to school that I would get married and never graduate.  That gentleman had to pay” up. In 1959, Mrs. Townsend became one of the first female engineers to join NASA, and in the next decade, she was named the first female spacecraft project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.