SWE Distinguished New Engineer
Hannah Morris
Spirit AeroSystems Inc.
For technical expertise, innovation, and organizational skills; for helping the next generation of aviators and engineers through mentoring and volunteer service; and for commitment to advancing SWE’s influence and reach.
Hannah Morris has always enjoyed STEM courses. Coupled with a fascination with aircraft, she decided to pursue studies in aerospace engineering and is now a structural design engineer with Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kansas.
Morris holds a B.S. in aerospace engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and a graduate certificate in composite materials and structures from the Missouri University of Science and Technology. She joined Spirit AeroSystems as a design engineering intern and following graduation, was hired as a Level I structural design engineer. Over time and with proven leadership, problem-solving abilities, and technical skills, she was promoted to positions with more responsibility and oversight.
Now a Level III structural design engineer with the company’s affordability engineering team on strategic defense programs, Morris leads three engineers executing affordability initiatives. This highly scrutinized work involves identifying and evaluating dozens of candidate projects for technical feasibility and manufacturing impacts, to meet aggressive program cost targets.
She has been instrumental in Spirit AeroSystems creating a culture of proactive inventory management by co-leading a cross-functional global team in a program to develop key metrics and performance indicators for the company’s overall multibillion-dollar inventory backlog. Prior to this program, the company lacked consistent or actionable inventory reporting standards. Morris and the team created a process with methods and performance indicators related to optimizing inventory that have been implemented across programs and at multiple global sites.
She is not only a leader within Spirit, but also within the Society of Women Engineers. She began her membership eight years ago with the Embry-Riddle section. She subsequently joined the Wichita Section and immersed herself in activities ranging from scholarship judge to awards to section president. She worked several times with the planning of Engineering Expo, the section’s signature event which engages 4,000 community members and children with hands-on STEM activities at 50 sponsored or community-led booths annually. Because of the global pandemic, the section canceled its 2020 in-person event. Morris led 15 SWE members to revive the event for 2021 and plan a virtual expo that distributed 1,500 free hands-on activity kits to Wichita area children. The section received the WE Local Outstanding Outreach Event Award and the SWE Mission Award Best Practice Outreach for the expo.
Morris has also served at the region and Society levels and is currently a Society curriculum committee member. She is developing a database to assist SWE leadership in creating and tracking content and aligning it to audience needs and interests.
Within Spirit, Morris participates in Spirit Women in Engineering Professions and Technology, an employee resource group that received the SWE Mission Award, Silver in FY19 for a variety of events and membership engagement while under her leadership as chair.
Morris’ positive impact in her work and in Wichita communities resulted in her receiving the Leader in Diversity Award from Spirit in 2019, the Outstanding Young Engineer of the Year Award from the Wichita Council of Engineering Societies in 2019, and SWE’s WE Local New ELiTE award in 2021.
In her free time, Morris enjoys baking and adventuring outdoors with her dog, Miley.