Outstanding Collegiate Member
Kristine Loh
Drexel University
For inspiring K-12 students to consider STEM careers; for supporting engineering students to stay true to their career goals; and for an inclusive leadership style that motivates others to serve.
Kristine Loh was a first-year student at Drexel University when she first heard about the Society of Women Engineers and joined the collegiate section. She became outreach chair and advanced to outreach director. She contacted local schools and led the section’s first Engineering Night for Girls, where more than 70 middle school girls learned about six engineering disciplines and met Drexel students from a variety of engineering backgrounds.
As outreach director, Loh sought to build upon the success of her earlier efforts. She partnered with The Franklin Institute to co-sponsor STEM programs at events such as Science After Hours; and with Independence Charter School to create an introductory to engineering workshop that introduced 50 middle school students to opportunities in mechanical, electrical, chemical, and civil engineering. She received an FY18 SWE Future Leader Award for these and other activities.
Her involvement in Drexel SWE continued as she was elected section president. She led 21 committee members, and together they sponsored 25 events each semester. She established new transition documents for each committee, strengthened the collegiate section’s social media presence, and increased the group’s exposure in the community. Under her leadership, the section received the university’s Student Organization of the Year Award for the second year in a row and the section’s first Gold Level Collegiate Section award from SWE. The highlight of Loh’s term was raising more than $12,000 to send 20 officers to WE18. She was recognized by SWE with the WE Local Guiding Star Award in FY19.
Loh also volunteered at the Society level and became a community lead working with the Asian Connections Affinity Group, fostering community discussions on intersectional experiences Asian women engineers face academically and professionally. She has volunteered and engaged with several student engineering organizations at Drexel, including the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE); the SASE Women’s Initiative; the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; and Alpha Omega Epsilon, a professional engineering and technical sciences sorority. She aspires to teach chemical engineering at the university level and become a SWE faculty advisor to motivate other young women to strive for excellence.
She holds a B.S. in chemical engineering and an M.S. in materials science and engineering, both from Drexel. She participated in undergraduate research that led to a co-first-author publication in progress based on her thesis research on optoelectronic properties of 2D materials discovered at Drexel. She received the Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award of Drexel’s College of Engineering for this achievement.
Loh was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and College of Science and Engineering Fellowship that will fully fund her research as she works toward a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She has maintained her involvement in SWE as a member of the GradSWE community and mentors graduate and undergraduate students.
A native of Miami, Loh enjoys experimenting with new air fryer recipes, volunteering at K-12 STEAM outreach events, and exploring Minneapolis.