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 Nicole Slaughter, mechanical engineer and member of the design team at Somerville-based Second Wind, addressed young women considering a career in engineering at a recent Women in Engineering open house held at Tufts University. Slaughter is a 2010 graduate of Tufts, where she majored in mechanical engineering. At Second Wind, she is involved in both manufacturing support and designing enhancements to the company's flagship product, the Triton Sonic Wind Profiler sodar system.
Tufts' Women in Engineering program is an opportunity for prospective students to learn about both engineering education at Tufts and careers in engineering. This one-day program welcomes high school women from across the country who have expressed interest in engineering, math, computer science, and the physical sciences to visit the campus for a day. During the course of the day, the young women met faculty, staff, students, and engineering alumnae.
Tufts University School of Engineering has an enduring commitment to increasing the number of women and underrepresented groups among its students and faculty. For example, women currently account for approximately 30%, 26%, and 18% of the undergraduate students, graduate students, and full-time faculty, respectively.
Slaughter was first introduced to engineering in middle school where she was part of an all-girls robotics club that competed in the FIRST Lego League, a non-profit educational competition. From there, she chose a vocational school that had a pre-engineering robotics class and received a special degree for three years of pre-graduate work in robotics.
Once at Tufts, she joined the National Society of Black Engineers, and became president of the Tufts chapter in her senior year. Of her post-graduate career, she says: "I had interned with Second Wind a couple of summers while at Tufts. The summer before my senior year, I did research and data analysis for the Triton. I really enjoyed what I was doing and was able to make a meaningful contribution to the product. During my exit interview, I was asked to return for a full time position upon my graduation. Being able to overcome design challenges and create a working and functional product is the most rewarding part of being an engineer. It's really incredible to see something that you helped design on a computer, piece of paper, chalkboard or dry-erase board become something real."
"We always say that the brainpower in the Boston area is one of our most important natural resources," says Second Wind general manager Susan Giordano. "We're fortunate to have many graduates of Tufts and other local universities on board, and they have helped us earn a reputation in the wind industry for our superb people."
About Second Wind
Second Wind provides the wind energy industry with the intelligence required to plan, finance and operate highly efficient, profitable wind generation facilities. Second Wind's WindIQ initiative helps the wind industry transform data into insight, making wind information more valuable, accessible, and meaningful. Second Wind's integrated product and service offerings include SkyServe® web-based wind data service; the Triton® Sonic Wind Profiler; the ProMast™ 60 met mast; and Nomad® 2 Wind Data Logger systems. For more information about Boston-based Second Wind, please visit www.secondwind.com.
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