My gREaTEST ChaLLENgE TECHNOLOGY, FONDNESS MAKE THIS MENTOR-MENTEE RELATIONSHIP WORK D
Dr. Melanie Bernard, a biomedical engineer, graduated in May 2008 with hotshot credentials from Vanderbilt Uni- versity in Nashville, TN, and was primed for the next step.
After nearly eight years at Vanderbilt – earning her bach- elor’s degree in biomedical and electrical engineering in 2004 and master’s and doctorate in biomedical engineer- ing in 2006 and 2008, respectively – Bernard found her way to a Northrop Grumman Corporation recruiting table in October 2007 at a Society of Women Engineers national confer- ence.
Like other student aspirants chal- lenged with making the leap from the cloistered world of academia to the real-world business practice of engineering, Bernard took to hand- ing out her impressive resume to eager recruiters. Not long after- ward, Bernard received an unlikely opportunity join Northrop – grati- fied that her resume “wound up in Tami’s hands.”
Tami is Dr. Tami R. Randolph, a pro- gram manager in Northrop Grum- man’s Intelligence Systems Division in Fairfax, VA, part of the company’s Information Systems Sector. Not only did Bernard get her first job
biomedical engineer from Vanderbilt – Bernard.
Researching image-processing methods for identification systems, such as devising ways to make fingerprints more easily identifiable, Randolph sought expertise via Bernard in the largely atypical field of biometrics for her program. “Melanie was ‘very different’ in terms of her degree,” Ran- dolph says. “But at the end of the day, she is an engineer. We were trying to think outside the box and understand the problems of the changing world.”
Dr. Melanie Bernard
out of college, but more than just getting a paycheck, she also got Randolph—a 2010 Women of Color magazine Special Recognition honoree—as a mentor.
“I actually had never looked at Northrop as a company I might apply to. I didn’t know that they did biomedical or medical-type projects. Being in Nashville, I had never heard of them,” Bernard says, reflecting on the naiveté of her college days.
Randolph joined the company in 2001 after earning her doctorate in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech, working her way up the Northrop corporate technical ladder to earn the responsibility for multimillion dollar re- search projects. Randolph’s group was developing signals intelligence systems for the U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence community when she reeled in that rising
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For Bernard, her recruit- ment into Northrop has been eased by her mentor-mentee experi- ence with Randolph, which helped to spur her acceptance into the company’s select Future Technical Leader pro- gram in the civil sector’s identification manage- ment unit. Within the program, Bernard rotates through various offices in the sector as a way of learning the technology and the business.
Randolph’s goal in
mentoring promising engineers seeks to help them “short circuit” the work process on multiple fronts, including how to advance technology, interact with customers and learn an organization’s corporate culture.
“I try to impart some of my experiences into the relation- ship so that [mentees] understand where the challenges are. They need to understand how to pace themselves, how to handle various situations, where to look for advice, and how to work interactions. A lot of moving forward is how you handle relationships,” Randolph says.
A January 2002 article in the Journal of Engineering Educa- tion, “Gender-Informed Mentoring Strategies for Women Engineering Scholars: On Establishing a Caring Commu- nity,” highlighted the importance of formal and informal mentoring for women in academia and the workplace.
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