Contact

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Please use the contact information below:

Mailing Address:
EngineerTeen
National Academy of Engineering
500 Fifth Street NW, K1011
Washington, DC 20001

Email:
EngineerTeen@nae.edu

Portrait of Simil Raghavan

Simil Raghavan

Simil Raghavan directs the Pathways Into Engineering center of programs for the NAE, including EngineerGirl.

Portrait of Mary Mathias

Mary Mathias

Mary Mathias is a Program Officer for the National Academy of Engineering and works on the EngineerGirl program.




Simil Raghavan

Simil Raghavan directs the Pathways Into Engineering initiatives for the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). This includes EngineerGirl, a resource aimed at showing all the possibilities of an engineering career to girls in K-12th grades. She received her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2008, where her thesis focused on neural and vocal plasticity resulting from deafness in primates.

Simil took a varied path into science and engineering and began her career at the NAE as a Mirzayan fellow in 2007. She grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and spent her childhood learning about farm animals and life on the prairie. She was an avid student who loved math and science, but she had little exposure to engineering and very little idea what careers were possible. After high school she expected to be a teacher and spent three years working in an elementary school before going to college. Once in college she explored several undergraduate majors including social work and Spanish language before discovering engineering in her junior year.

Once she made the switch to an engineering major, she found an immediate fit. Although she expected to work in industry after her Ph.D., she loved the challenge of helping others to discover their potential. Working for the NAE let her pursue her passion to improve education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) particularly for under-represented groups and those who may not normally consider a technical career. As a senior program officer, she is always looking for opportunities to expand the reach of youth programming and make engineering a more welcoming profession for everyone.







Mary Mathias

Mary Mathias is a Program Officer for the National Academy of Engineering and works on the Pathways Into Engineering initiatives. Her passion for increasing access and inclusivity in STEM fields has guided her career path since her last two years of college at Washington University in St. Louis, where she earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering.

As part of an engineering project team, Mary took the role of outreach lead and ran an educational program for local middle school students. She connected with the Saint Louis Science Center during her research for the program which led to an education internship, during which she fell in love with informal education and science communication. Mary took a slight detour after college and worked as an associate producer for a documentary film company, but made her way back to STEM through positions with the Association of Science and Technology Centers and the American Astronomical Society. During this time she also earned a master's degree in museum studies from Johns Hopkins University.

Mary joined the National Academy of Engineering in 2017. She currently works on the EngineerGirl and EngineerTeen programs.




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