A Young Professional on the Power of Mentorship

The lack 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. But Zakrzewska wonders how totally different her journey would have been if she’d had a mentor to information her when she was youthful.

“None of my family members or family friends were engineers,” she says. “I also didn’t have any mentors at school, and I often think about how my career would be different if I was exposed to STEM earlier in life.”

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

She additionally gives steerage to school college students and younger professionals by means of outreach packages at Dell comparable 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 honor 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 concerning 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.

“Since I couldn’t actually see how the device worked,” she says, “to me engineering was magic.”

Zakrzewska initially needed to develop into a radio broadcaster, however she additionally appreciated the concept of turning into an engineer so she may create know-how that individuals would contemplate magical like she did. Ultimately she selected to pursue engineering and figured she may 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 enjoyed working on student research projects but felt that the academic world was not for me. I couldn’t see myself as a lecturer,” she says. “But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be an industrial researcher either.”

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

Finding 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.

While there, she had her first expertise of being a mentor to undergraduate engineering college students as a member of the college’s
IEEE scholar department.

“If a door to a certain opportunity is closed, don’t let that discourage you. Find a way to open the door, or [find] another way in.”

“The Ph.D.-level members of the branch started a mentoring program because we realized we could help younger students with their studies or give them advice about internships and career paths,” she says. “The branch also invited established professionals from a variety of electrical engineering fields to speak to students.”

Participating 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 packages. In 2015 she started managing the Nokia Bell Labs sales space on the
BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition (BTYSTE), an annual Irish science honest. She instructed children who visited the sales space about her job and answered their questions. They requested her questions comparable to “Have you ever broken anything in the lab?” and “What do you do if things don’t work—does your boss yell at you?”

“I answered their questions as truthfully as I could,” Zakrzewska says, laughing, “while still making them feel excited about working in STEM.”

Her volunteering at BTYSTE got here to an finish in 2021, when she left Nokia Bell Labs 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.

Increasing fairness within the technical workforce

Zakrzewska turned energetic 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 fairness (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 have interaction 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 energetic in 2020 for the annual Technovation Girls competitors. Teams of as much as 5 women between the ages of 8 and 18 develop a know-how that would deal with challenges of their native communities.There are three divisions: newcomers, juniors, and seniors. In addition to creating a cell app, the groups current a marketing strategy and a pitch video.

“I am extremely impressed by these projects,” Zakrzewska says. “The college students are capable of establish the important thing issues, which frequently relate to their respective age group and might not be seen by adults, for instance local weather change anxiousness or social media dependancy. Many have bold plans to accomplice with the native authorities and search sponsorship for his or her apps.

“Solving these problems not only provides a motivation to learn new skills in coding or teamwork, but also empowers the students to lead the change in their local communities.”

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

“I challenge my mentees to step out of their comfort zone and, for example, search for job opportunities abroad,” she says. “I don’t imagine in individuals limiting themselves.

“I strive to show them how their skills are widely applicable and that they can dream big in terms of where their career may lead them.”

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

“If a door to a certain opportunity is closed, don’t let that discourage you,” she counsels. “Find a way to open the door or [find] another way in.”

She is about to obtain the Hissey Award on 5 May 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.