Life Style

A Younger Skilled on the Energy of Mentorship


a photo of a woman in a pink shirt and glasses

The dearth of an engineering mentor whereas rising up didn’t hinder
Anna Zakrzewska from having a profitable profession in telecommunications. She is a senior principal engineer at Dell Technologies in Dublin. However Zakrzewska wonders how completely different her journey would have been if she’d had a mentor to information her when she was youthful.

“None of my members of the family or household mates have been engineers,” she says. “I additionally didn’t have any mentors at college, and I usually take into consideration how my profession could be completely different if I used to be uncovered to STEM earlier in life.”


The IEEE senior member has made it her mission to introduce youngsters to science, know-how, engineering, and arithmetic careers and to nurture their curiosity in STEM fields. She volunteers for organizations that do exactly that corresponding to
Technovation Girls, which focuses on getting extra women serious about STEM. The nonprofit holds an annual competitors at which groups develop cellular apps that deal with real-world issues. Zakrzewska helps choose the entries.

She additionally gives steerage to school college students and younger professionals by outreach applications at Dell corresponding to
STEM Aspire.

For her work in STEM outreach and technical contributions to telecommunications analysis, Zakrzewska is the recipient of this 12 months’s
IEEE Theodore W. Hissey Outstanding Young Professional Award. The consideration is sponsored by IEEE Young Professionals and the IEEE Photonics and Power & Energy societies.

Receiving the award, Zakrzewska says, motivates her to proceed her volunteerism, mentoring, and technical profession.

Mentoring the following technology of engineers

When Zakrzewska was rising up in Poland, she and her household usually listened to the radio. Their radio was in regards to the measurement of a microwave oven, she says, and he or she believed there have been little individuals dwelling inside whose job was to entertain and inform listeners.

Zakrzewska says when somebody lastly defined to her the engineering that makes radios work, it was an summary idea.

About Anna Zakrzewska

EMPLOYER Dell Applied sciences in Dublin

TITLE Senior principal engineer

MEMBER GRADE Senior member

ALMA MATERS Technical College of Denmark, in Kongens Lyngby and the Wrocław College of Science and Expertise, in Poland

“Since I couldn’t really see how the system labored,” she says, “to me engineering was magic.”

Zakrzewska initially needed to change into a radio broadcaster, however she additionally preferred the concept of turning into an engineer so she might create know-how that folks would think about magical like she did. In the end she selected to pursue engineering and figured she might write about know-how in her spare time.

After graduating with a grasp’s diploma in telecommunications and pc science in 2008 from the
Wrocław University of Science and Technology, in Poland, Zakrzewska initially didn’t know what kind of profession to pursue.

“I loved engaged on pupil analysis initiatives however felt that the tutorial world was not for me. I couldn’t see myself as a lecturer,” she says. “However I wasn’t certain if I needed to be an industrial researcher both.”

She determined to offer analysis a try to in 2009 grew to become an intern at
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., in Atsugi, Japan. She left after a couple of 12 months to take an analogous place on the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy. It conducts telecommunications analysis and helps the European Union set coverage.

Discovering that she loved the work, Zakrzewska enrolled in 2010 in a doctoral program in wi-fi communications on the
Technical University of Denmark, in Kongens Lyngby.

Whereas there, she had her first expertise of being a mentor to undergraduate engineering college students as a member of the college’s
IEEE student branch.

“If a door to a sure alternative is closed, don’t let that discourage you. Discover a option to open the door, or [find] one other approach in.”

“The Ph.D.-level members of the department began a mentoring program as a result of we realized we might assist youthful college students with their research or give them recommendation about internships and profession paths,” she says. “The department additionally invited established professionals from quite a lot of electrical engineering fields to talk to college students.”

Collaborating in this system made Zakrzewska notice that many preuniversity faculties didn’t promote careers in STEM, she says, and that mentoring younger individuals about such careers after they’re already college college students is “too late.”

After incomes her Ph.D. in 2013, she joined
Nokia Bell Labs in Dublin as a analysis scientist working in wi-fi communications and self-organizing networks. She has been granted a number of patents, which have been commercialized.

She additionally began to volunteer for STEM outreach organizations and applications. In 2015 she started managing the Nokia Bell Labs sales space on the
BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, an annual Irish science honest. She advised kids who visited the sales space about her job and answered their questions. They requested her questions corresponding to “Have you ever ever damaged something within the lab?” and “What do you do if issues don’t work—does your boss yell at you?”

“I answered their questions as honestly as I might,” Zakrzewska says, laughing, “whereas nonetheless making them really feel enthusiastic about working in STEM.”

She left Nokia Bell Labs in 2021 and joined Dell as a principal engineer at its
Telecom Co-innovation Expert Centre. She helps develop technical requirements for telecommunication know-how, particularly for open radio entry networks.

Growing fairness within the technical workforce

Zakrzewska grew to become lively in 2017 with the annual
Grace Hopper Celebration, a gathering of girls technologists. The occasion is organized by AnitaB.org, a nonprofit that’s working to extend intersectional equity (equity with respect to each race and gender) within the world technical workforce. Zakrzewska is a committee member and is on the panel of reviewers for the scholarship program.

In 2020 she started volunteering for
I’m a Scientist, an enrichment program designed to attach college students with scientists and engineers. The mentors and college students interact in on-line chats on this system’s web site, and mentees can ask their mentor questions on their job. Zakrzewska says she enjoys serving to encourage the following technology by sharing her real-life experiences.

She additionally started lively in 2020 for the annual Technovation Women competitors. Groups of as much as 5 women between the ages of 8 and 18 develop a know-how that might deal with challenges of their native communities.There are three divisions: novices, juniors, and seniors. Along with growing a cellular app, the groups current a marketing strategy and a pitch video.

“I’m extraordinarily impressed by these initiatives,” Zakrzewska says. “The scholars are in a position to establish the important thing issues, which regularly relate to their respective age group and is probably not seen by adults, for instance local weather change anxiousness or social media habit. Many have formidable plans to companion with the native authorities and search sponsorship for his or her apps.

IEEE: A reliable useful resource and world group

Zakrzewska joined IEEE in 2010 whereas a Ph.D. pupil on the Technical College of Denmark. She signed up, she says, so she might publish a paper in one in every of IEEE’s convention proceedings. She maintains her membership partly as a result of IEEE is a reliable supply of knowledge, and he or she refers back to the group’s journals practically each day at work.

One other advantage of membership is IEEE’s world community, she says: “By being a member, I can attain out to any skilled in any engineering-related area on the earth. Everyone seems to be an electronic mail away.”

“Fixing these issues not solely gives a motivation to study new abilities in coding or teamwork, but in addition empowers the scholars to steer the change of their native communities.”

As a participant in Dell’s mentoring applications, Zakrzewska visits preuniversity faculties to clarify to college students how she grew to become an engineer and what her job entails. She additionally gives profession steerage to the corporate’s interns and younger professionals as properly.

“I problem my mentees to step out of their consolation zone and, for instance, seek for job alternatives overseas,” she says. “I don’t imagine in individuals limiting themselves.

“I attempt to point out them how their abilities are extensively relevant and that they’ll dream large when it comes to the place their profession could lead them.”

Zakrzewska’s greatest piece of recommendation for her mentees, she says, is to create alternatives for themselves.

“If a door to a sure alternative is closed, don’t let that discourage you,” she counsels. “Discover a option to open the door or [find] one other approach in.”

She is ready to obtain the IEEE Theodore W. Hissey Excellent Younger Skilled Award on 5 Might on the
2023 IEEE Vision, Innovation, and Challenges Summit and Honors Ceremony, to be held on the Hilton Atlanta.

The views expressed on this interview are Anna Zakrzewska’s private opinions and don’t essentially mirror the views of any group talked about.


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