This summer, we are celebrating women leaders in engineering by featuring insightful Q&As with leaders within the College of Engineering. These women are transforming engineering culture, making a significant impact on students and paving the way for a brighter future. This week, we are featuring Helene Finger, Cal Poly’s Women’s Engineering Program director.
How has your outlook on the future been enhanced by your engineering experience?
As an engineer, I have been trained to solve problems. This has helped me to see paths forward for creating solutions for many of our current problems, both inside the traditional engineering realm and beyond. This, in turn, contributes to my optimism about the future as I focus on the opportunities that solutions to a wide range of problems could provide.
How have you used your engineering experience to enhance the lives of others?
One area where I have recently used my engineering skills is to help create Safe Routes To School (SRTS) for students at Hawthorne Elementary School, which has the lowest family incomes in the city of San Luis Obispo. This included contributing to the Higuera Complete Streets grant application that was awarded grant funding of $8.8 million from the California Transportation Committee in 2023 to develop and implement routes for students to bike and walk to school safely.
Another area where I utilize my engineering skills is related to my efforts to help reduce homelessness. Since October 2022, I have served on the Homelessness Data Business Case Planning Steering Committee. This committee provides strategic oversight for accomplishing the goal of: Improve and expand data management efforts through the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) and coordinated entry system to strengthen data-driven operational guidance and strategic oversight. The HMIS project team — with participation from all partner agencies — made steady progress on creating a data management system that was successfully launched March 2024. The HMIS system now supports coordinated entry needs and will also allow for future expansion. Having this data will be foundational in understanding and supporting the needs of homeless individuals and those at risk of becoming homeless in our community.
What possibilities can engineering bring to improve our community?
I believe that as an engineer, our fundamental goal should be to improve people’s lives, and that the possibilities to improve our communities are almost endless. As we look to support communities, it is critical that we incorporate a focus on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. This starts with engaging with community members from the start, even before we define which problems will be solved.
How do you work to inspire the next generation of engineers?
My work as Director of Women’s Engineering Program (WEP) allows me to provide strategic direction to Society of Women Engineers (SWE) leaders, inspire and guide students, as well as provide students with the tools and confidence to lead engineering project teams, implement on-campus support programs and provide outreach to youth underrepresented in STEM fields. Due in part to these efforts, Cal Poly College of Engineering’s current first-year student class is the most diverse ever with over 31% Hispanics and over 32% women.
What is the Women’s Engineering Program?
The Women’s Engineering Program is focused on engagement and nurturing of girls and women in engineering. We strive for the College of Engineering to match the demographics of the state of California and to promote a space where everyone belongs and thrives.
How does the Women’s Engineering Program help create changemakers?
In partnership with the Cal Poly section of the Society of Women Engineers, the Women’s Engineering Program implements a wide range of on-campus support and outreach activities. This rather unique partnership empowers students in leadership roles to plan and implement programming. Supporting over 500 students with over 100 events annually, Cal Poly SWE develops and implements a strategic plan aligned with national SWE and Cal Poly strategic priorities. Currently there are over 40 SWE officers, structured in five cores with Vice Presidents overseeing 4-9 officers, and an executive core managed by the President. The impact of these dedicated students is inspiring. For example, each year over 30 outreach events are organized by Cal Poly SWE, utilizing over 300 student volunteers, and reaching over 4500 K-12 students.
What are some of the projects students work on as part of the Women’s Engineering Program?
Every year, we host a technical project team that works for the academic year with an industry sponsor on designing, building and testing a project as part of the national Team Tech Collegiate Competition. This year’s team is working with All Wheels Up on designing a system to secure wheelchairs on airplanes. Previous projects have included: Expedition Everest Maintenance Vehicle project with Walt Disney Imagineering, Localization Device for Catheter Tips project with St. Jude Medical and Sustainable Oxygen Generator System for Malawi with Mazzetti Inc.
How does collaboration benefit the engineering industry?
Collaboration is the key for engineers to successfully identify and solve problems. Working together to make the world safer and people’s lives better is one of the things that I really like about engineering. Not only do I get to meet a range of people, but on a well-functioning project team, we work together on solving problems and overcoming obstacles.
By Taylor Villanueva
