Alumna to Share Experience With 'SMART Girls' Participants
Wednesday, July 5, 2006
A Pennsylvania College of Technology alumna who has achieved career success in science and technology will address participants of the college's SMART Girls (Science and Math Applications in Real-World Technologies) program on the summer session's closing day July 12.
The keynote address, which follows three days of hands-on activities and tours that expose participants to math, science and technology careers, will be delivered by Robyn Lampman Gross, an engineer at Alcoa Inc., Pittsburgh. The keynote address is open to participants and their families.
A graduate of Penn College's general studies program with an associate degree, Gross transferred to The Pennsylvania State University, where she earned a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering. She is also a graduate of the Katz School of Business in Pittsburgh, where she earned a master of business administration degree.
Her career at Alcoa began in 1994 as an environmental engineer at the Alcoa Center. Two years later, she transferred to the Alcoa Lebanon Works as a senior environmental engineer. In 2003, she became the business unit environmental coordinator for Alcoa Automotive, providing environmental guidance to four domestic and four European facilities.
Her next assignment was with Alcoa Remediation Services as environmental health and safety manager. She is currently location project manager, responsible for two curtailed production facilities in Badin, N.C., and Bauxite, Ariz.
Gross' 14 years of experience with Alcoa have included management of hazardous and nonhazardous waste at a manufacturing facility, technical support to Alcoa's research and development facility, oversight of a location undergoing remediation, extensive domestic and international travel, as well as responsibility for compliance with governmental regulations and internal Alcoa requirements.
Gross and her husband, Tim, have a 2-year-old daughter. Her parents are MaryAnn and Chester Lampman.
SMART Girls is an initiative devised by a group of Penn College faculty women and supported by the college to counter an alarming academic and societal pattern that shows women are less likely to pursue careers in science, engineering and technology. The program, which offers one-day sessions in spring and fall for seventh- and eighth-graders and a three-day residential session for girls entering ninth and 10th grades in July, provides participants the opportunity to experience math and science as a foundation for careers in technology.
SMART Girls is funded in part by the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Act of 1998; by New Choices/New Options Career Development Services under the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bureau of Vocational-Technical Education; and by Penn College.
For more information about SMART Girls, visit online .