Meet WPI’s Women in STEM
Jeannine Coburn
Biomedical Engineering
I teach courses in the Biomedical Engineering department and run a research lab on Functional Biomaterials. It is hard to pinpoint exactly when my excitement for STEM fields came about; working on cars, doing construction on the family house growing up, and attending a vocational high school all instilled a desire to learn how things work and how to fix them. I found my interest in biomedical research during college from inspirational female professors and never wanted to stop learning and providing STEM experience for young women ever since. I think everyone should have the opportunity to find his or her passion, whatever that may be. Outside of research and teaching, I like to spend time with my daughter camping, hiking, and walking the dogs.
Snehalata Kadam
Physics
Prof. Snehalata Kadam is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Worcester since 2014. Her goal is to create a bridge between diverse disciplines such as Physical and Biological Sciences. Her primary responsibility is not only to create a Physics loving atmosphere especially in female students wherein they can develop their knowledge but also help themselves adapt innovative learning strategies. Her mantra ”Physics Makes You Think”.
Tess Meier & Sreejani (Jani) Chatterjee
Robotics Engineering Department
Tess is a 3rd year PhD student in Robotics Engineering and works on medical robotics! She loves creating robots that help people with injuries or disabilities live more independently. When she’s not in the lab, she loves to sew clothes, read, and be outside! To her, art and science go hand in hand.
Jani is a Ph.D. candidate in the Robotics Engineering department at WPI. Her area of research is Vision-Based Control of Robotic manipulators with a focus on Deep Learning. Aside from Robotics, her passion is World History and she loves reading historical fiction (and non-fiction). Actually, she loves reading in general. She also loves swimming and hiking.”
Prof. Jane Li has been an assistant professor with the Robotics Engineering Department of Worcester Polytechnic Institute since 2017. She received her Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2009 from the University of Victoria in Canada, and her Ph.D. in Computer Engineering in 2014 from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was a postdoctoral associate with Duke University in 2015-2016. She has extensive experience in human-robot interaction and interfaces for various medical robots for stroke rehabilitation, tele-surgery, and tele-nursing assistance. At WPI, she develops human-robot interfaces and shared autonomy to enable the efficient, intuitive and effortless control of mobile humanoid nursing robots by operators novice to robot teleoperation. She also developed novel experimental paradigms to investigate human vision-motion coordination when using cameras for active perception, to inform the design of human-robot interface and shared autonomy. Her research has been funded by NSF, NIOSH, DEVCOM, and SEMI-FlexTech.
Alissa Richard
Chemistry and Biochemistry Department
Dr. Alissa Richard is an adjunct Teaching Professor for the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at WPI, who enjoys teaching and researching topics at the intersection of chemistry and physics! Her passion for teaching began as an undergraduate student at Cleveland State University and has continued to grow with experience. At WPI, she primarily instructs introductory chemistry labs and lectures using an interactive classroom to engage students during projects and create a solid foundation for learning STEM. Her research focuses on quantifying small molecule interactions using computational chemistry and understanding the effects of including computational chemistry in pedagogy.
Jessica Rosewitz
Civil, Engineering and Architectural Engineering
Dr. Jessica Rosewitz draws upon a wealth of past experiences to inform her teaching and advising, industry and community engagement, and project-based education, with a focus on continual improvement of engineering education at all levels. She brings together students with local companies to enrich their academic project experiences, and her dedication to early engineering education drives her outreach with local vocational schools, community organizations, and pre-K-12 programs. Her goal is to provide an outstanding practical classroom education with opportunity to solidify understanding of theory. Not to be confused with her other job: she is a mother of two young children, a lifelong soccer lover and player, and a newly minted Kindergarten soccer coach.
Scarlett Shell
Biology and Biotechnology
My research is motivated by two things: my desire to help reduce the impact of infectious diseases on humanity, and my love for understanding how living organisms work. So, my lab studies the inner workings of pathogenic bacteria to better understand how they do things like survive antibiotics and tolerate stressful conditions. Some of my favorite moments are when we make a new discovery and realize we know something that no human has ever known before! When I’m not working, one of my favorite things is spending time outdoors with my kids and my partner.
Ceren Yilmaz-Akkaya
Chemistry and Biochemistry
I teach courses in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and do research on clean energy & environment as well as STEM education.
Sarah Wodin-Schwartz
Mechanical & Materials Engineering
I love teaching fundamental engineering concepts and the engineering design process. I have worked with WPI students on course projects and their MQPs for the past 10 years. I enjoy developing new activities and techniques to help my students learn new skills and apply them to the world around them. My favorite part of being an engineering is getting to think about challenges from many different angles and perspectives so that solutions will work for a wide range of users. I also like playing will all of the mechanical toys! Outside of work I can be found playing with my kiddos, reading, and crocheting.
