On Saturday, June 26^th, Dallas SWE held our annual Membership Recognition Event for FY21! Dallas SWE had the pleasure of supporting our membership base this year, so this event was held to celebrate all of our accomplishments. 

This virtual event followed a movie theme. Dallas SWE sponsored a Redbox snack and popcorn boxes for everyone to enjoy like we are in the theatres together. Members were munching on popcorn and their favorite movie candies during the call. The full presentation can be found here.

We started with an icebreaker where everyone shared their name, role, and favorite movie and actress. There were lots of great movies shared during the icebreaker and it allowed us to get know more about our interests. 

Our membership appreciation event recognized all of the efforts that our members have taken to make us better than before. FY21 President, Amanda Alsbrook, opened up with the FY21 Presidents Awards:

President’s Choice Awards:

• Outreach Members of the Year – Margaret Crawford and Amber Kreceman
• Guiding Light Award – Lynn Mortensen 
• Rising Star Award – Malia Kawamura
• Member of the Year – Claire Jordan 

Then, Dallas SWE recognized all of our amazing Committee Chairs for their leadership. 

Dallas SWE Committee Chairs: 

• Mentorship Lead: Arthi Gopalakrishnan
• Membership Committee Chair: Trina Sriram
• Nominating Committee Chair: Zaineb Ahmad
• Social Media Committee Chair: Marion Sanchez
• Scholarship Committee Chair: Lynn Mortensen
• Outreach STEM Committee Chair: Pratiksha Jaju
• Outreach Design Your World Committee Chair: Gretchen Landego

Dallas SWE truly appreciates the involvement of our Committee Members. 

Outreach Committee Members: 

• Sally Kammer
• Pratiksha Jaju
• Gretchen Landego
• Nick Barnhill
• Brandi Smith
• Gerard Martir
• Elizabeth Gjini
• Rebecca Johnson
• Amber Kreceman
• Sammy Zellner
• Margaret Crawford
• Claire Jordan
• Teri Cate
• Lynn Mortensen
• Haley Buckley
• Evelyn Beebe

Membership Committee Members:

• Trina Sriram 
• Claire Jordan
• Haritha Yearuva
• Shay Goldberg
• Marion Sanchez
• Barrette’ Mort

Social Media Committee Members:

• Marion Sanchez 
• Haley Barnes

Nominating Committee Members:

• Zaineb Ahmad
• Haley Barnes
• Haley Hannenberg
• Malia Kawamura 
• Gretchen Landego

Fundraising Committee Members:

• Ayesha Patel
• Elizabeth Gjini

Scholarship Committee Members:

• Lynn Mortensen
• Dorci Cotton
• Jamie Stringfield
• Shamreen Pradhan

Mentorship Committee Member:

• Arthi Gopalakrishnan

Amanda also recognized the efforts of our outgoing officers: 

Outgoing Officers: 

• Katia Gomez, Executive Vice President 
• Thi Dao, Vice President of Outreach
• Katie Mills, Treasurer
• Sammy Zellner, Secretary
• Rana Karimi, Vice President of Membership

We also congratulated all of the Dallas SWE Scholarship recipients: 

High School Scholarship Recipients: 

• Kelly Chen, Plano West SHS
• Aamilah Chowdhury, Uplift Summit
• Katherine Anderson, Coppell HS
• Alexia Rutledge, Lewisville HS
• Abigail Simon, Coppell HS

Annie Colaço Scholarship for Collegiate Leaders: 

• Maaha Sakhia, UTD
• Camila Giron-Errazuriz, SMU
• Faith Fang, SMU

Congratulations to all of Dallas SWE’s past Members of the Month for FY21. 

Member of the Month Recap: 

• Nick Barnhill, June 2021
• Susan Biancheri, May 2021
• Laura Skola, April 2021
• Elizabeth Gjini, March 2021
• Claire Jordan, January 2021
• Pam Duffy, December 2020
• Daphne Hornbuckle, November 2020
• Laura Cowley, October 2020
• Marion Sanchez, September 2020
• Katie Mills, August 2020
• Kate van Dellen, July 2020

Throughout the event, everyone shared how their experience went with Dallas SWE this year. Dallas SWE is very grateful to have such an engaged, diverse and talented member base. It was an incredible year of accomplishments and we would like to thank each of our members for making it possible! 

Dallas SWE members say “SWE” and smile for a photo op.

Our resident artist, Claire, leading us through the paint activity, which was painting a Dallas theatre. 

SWE Members demonstrating their masterpieces.

Congratulations to Dallas SWE’s July Member of the Month: Pratiksha Jaju!

Pratiksha is an IT Business Analyst at Overhead Door Corporation in Lewisville, Texas. She completed her Bachelors in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from India and pursued her Master’s in Engineering Technology with concentration in Engineering Management from University of North Texas (UNT) in 2019. Pratiksha was actively involved with SWE at the UNT chapter and served as Graduate Student Officer for FY18-19. This is her first term with Dallas SWE as the Outreach STEM Committee Chair and is excited to be involved with Dallas section.

This year as Dallas SWE followed the path of virtual world, Pratiksha has been actively involved with all the events that were lined up this Spring. She has been adding good ideas to all the outreach events along with organizing and managing few.

She loves counselling and sharing her life experiences to motivate as many girls as possible towards STEM. With her family and friends support, she has come a long way, for specially someone who comes from a community where girls are still prepared for just handling a household. She tries hard to break the weird stereotypes that still surround women. Pratiksha believes in giving back to the society and SWE has given her the platform to do so. She hopes to serve the community for betterment and hope to be a good Samaritan.