Chelsea Ryberg Receives 2009 Collegiate Member Award from the
Society of Women Engineers
CHICAGO – October 16, 2009 – The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is pleased to announce Chelsea Ryberg as a recipient of the 2009 Collegiate Member Award. She is recognized for transforming her collegiate SWE section into a vibrant organization that set many young engineers on the path to success.
“Chelsea Ryberg is an inspiration and role model for fellow engineering students, promoting and attaining participation for SWE campus activities,” says Nora Lin, SWE president. “Under her leadership as the Seattle University Collegiate Section president, SWE activity participation has grown dramatically.”
Ryberg recently graduated from Seattle University with a degree in electrical engineering and a specialization in computer engineering. She played an integral role in her collegiate section, serving as president after noting the lack of meetings and activities among the local section. Ryberg organized numerous activities to increase participation, including the annual SWE Resume Night, a mentoring program with local professional sections, monthly study groups and fundraising events, among others. Ryberg is also actively involved with Region J and national events, including moderating the SWE Professional Development Resources Community.
“Chelsea is admired by her peers and teachers not only for her tremendous amount of enthusiasm, creativity and leadership within SWE, but within the Seattle University campus and community as well,” says Kelly Schable, account manager at the Boeing Company. “She is a shining star to be watched as she joins the engineering profession and the SWE professional environments.”
In addition to her SWE dedication, Ryberg enhances the technical profession for fellow women engineers. While a student, she participated in a rotation program at Cascade Engineering Services in which she received exposure to designing medical devices, avionics, test equipment and wireless communication systems. Ryberg also worked as an undergraduate researcher at the University of Virginia, contributing to the development of nanotech solutions for downscaling transistors. Her senior capstone work included being part of a design team that worked on a Boeing-sponsored multi-motion testing system. During the summer of 2008, Ryberg had a hardware design engineering internship at Intel, where she participated in the design of circuit boards for servers. In June 2009, Ryberg joined Intel as a BIOS (embedded software) development engineer for high-end server systems.
The Collegiate Member Award recipients, honored for exceptional achievements and service within collegiate sections, will be recognized on October 17 at WE09, the Society’s Annual Conference. WE09 will take place at the Long Beach Convention Center, October 15-17, in Long Beach, Calif. More than 5,000 attendees include collegians and professionals from the industry, government and academia.
About SWE
The Society of Women Engineers (SWE), founded in 1950, is a not-for-profit educational and service organization. SWE is the driving force that establishes engineering as a highly desirable career aspiration for women. SWE empowers women to succeed and advance in those aspirations and receive the recognition and credit for their life-changing contributions and achievements as engineers and leaders. For more information about the Society please visit www.swe.org or call (312) 596-5223.