The Women in Automotive Engineering (WIAE) program at Houghton, MI-based Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech), mtu.edu, allows high schools to explore this engineering discipline as a future career. It’s part of Michigan Tech’s Summer Youth programs.

“Programs like WIAE are critical to encouraging more young women to consider automotive engineering as a career path,” says Cynthia Hodges, a Michigan Tech alumna and chassis manager at Ford Motor Company, headquartered in Dearborn, MI

“As an automotive engineer, I get to work on something that makes a difference every day to almost all people in the world. There’s no better way to make the world a better place than to work on cars and trucks.”

Gary Smyth agrees. The executive director of global research and development for General Motors, Smyth was visited Michigan Tech’s Advanced Power Systems Research Center (APSRC) last summer week and took the opportunity to share some of his insights with the girls.

 “This is a great time to be a woman in this industry,” he told them. “The auto industry is coming back in Michigan. This is a great university; these are great courses. The auto industry needs people with a broad range of skills: computer science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software engineering. The connected and autonomous vehicles industry alone is going to be hiring many thousands of people in Michigan.”

 The WIAE students learned about modern automotive technology in Michigan Tech’s Mobile Laboratory at the APSRC, a state-of- the-art engineering teaching laboratory with the sophisticated technology used in the automotive industry today. This is the second year of the program. Last year, it had auto industry sponsors, though this year it did not.

 Lead teacher is Chris Morgan, who spent seven years in the auto industry, including working as a product development engineer at General Motors (GM). He also worked as a calibration engineer, a software development engineer, a validation engineer and a diagnostic strategist.

He taught the teens that attended last summer’s WIAE program all about aerodynamics, suspensions, airbags, hybridization and pollution, controls and calibration, autonomous vehicles and engines.

One of those girls he taught was Kaleigh Pare. Her dad is a Michigan Tech alumnus and an engineer who recruits for Chrysler. But until she came to the WIAE at Michigan Tech, all Pare, 17, knew about cars was how to drive one and change the oil - with her father’s help.

After she began attending, she was amazed at “how many components there are in an engine, how complex they are.”

Her twin sister, Quinn, also took WIAE. They traveled from nearby Memphis, MI to attend.

Aleeha Azhar also attended with them, but her journey to Michigan Tech took a little longer than the Pare sisters.

Azhar, 16, is from Sialkot, a small industrial city in the northeast Punjab region of Pakistan. She’s one of four students from the Roots International Schools who were taking the university’s summer youth programs.

She doesn’t drive, indicating at the time she knew nothing about cars before the program. Her school offers scholarship program opportunities in the summer, including WIAE. And she chose it because she felt she “would be more comfortable with girls.”

The class left The Pare sisters with a sense that “women can do anything,” according to Kaleigh Pare. However, Azhar had a slightly different point of view: “I’m not so sure women can do anything. There are places in Pakistan where women are still treated as inferior. But that is changing. My city is very progressive. And my parents are very supportive.”

 “What’s really important is showing girls the opportunities in STEM and the breadth of options in the automotive industry. They’re learning about the impact they can have on the environment and society,” says Smyth, whose daughter, Sarah, took a small business and entrepreneurship summer youth program at Michigan Tech last summer.

Michigan Tech is offering WIAE this summer, once again, from July 15 to 21