Patrick Henry High School student, Maya Rozenshteyn, has been honored with the SWENext Global Innovator Award for her engagement in the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) community, her solid understanding of engineering principles, her role in serving her own community and her strong leadership skills. Maya will be honored alongside her peers at a formal ceremony at the SWE annual conference and career fair on Oct. 27 in Austin, Texas.
SWE is an international nonprofit organization that supports women in engineering. SWENext is SWE’s program for girls 18 and under to get involved in the organization, learn more about engineering and receive access to resources that support their interest in engineering. SWENext has allowed Rozenshteyn to connect with women engineers and strategize solutions to address her concerns on the lack of female participation in engineering. Rozenshteyn started the SWENext Club at Henry, the first in the region.
“SWENext is an opportunity for SWE to nurture our future generation of engineers, providing them with resources to help them learn more about engineering and exposing them to other women engineers who can help them along the way,” said Randy Freedman, director of student programs at SWE. “This is the second year of our SWENext Awards program, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the level of enthusiasm and commitment these girls already have to a future in engineering. Maya has been an exemplary role model in her community, and we are confident that with her passion for engineering, and her commitment to the community, Maya will do great things.”
Rozenshteyn is a junior and is interested in both mechanical engineering and computer science. She runs cross country, is a member of the California Scholarship Federation, secretary of Catalyst for Success, and president of the Architecture and Construction Engineering Club and the Engineering Student Council.
As SWENext Club President, Rozenshteyn supervises the planning of club outreach events aimed to foster middle school girls’ interest in STEM through speaker panels and interactive projects. She also connects girls in the club to local STEM professionals and teaches them the ins and outs of networking. As president of her school’s Engineering Student Council, she serves as the bridge between the school and community, working with other students, teachers, parents and engineers to improve upon local engineering events and classes, including STEM day, where fifth graders across the county congregate at her school to learn about STEM fields. Rozenshteyn is also youth outreach chair at her synagogue.
In 2016, Rozenshteyn interned at the USS Midway, redesigning the audio tour to make it more accessible for the impaired. She won third place at the highly competitive Chevron Design Challenge State Finals. In summer 2017, she was selected for the prestigious Young Scholars Internship at San Diego State University, conducting research to characterize polyurea microspheres and their impact mitigating properties.
“Hopi elders once declared that, ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for.’ We have the power to incite change in the world. I, for one, hope to be a mover and shaker in the STEM community and inspire others to be active STEM participants as well,” Rozenshteyn said.
For more information about SWENext, visit bit.ly/1Czrf5e. For more information about the Society of Women Engineers, visit swe.org.
