Representing SWE’s highest level of awards, the APEX Awards honor individuals with 20+ years of professional experience, as part of the annual SWE Awards Program, which celebrates high levels of achievement among those who identify as women and allies at all career stages in engineering, engineering technology, or science related to engineering. Hear directly from SWE's 2024 APEX Award Winners as they share significant career milestones and valuable lessons they've learned along the way.

Join over 200 biopharma and biotech executive leaders at our annual biomanufacturing conference! Over our two-day event, top biopharma executives and solution providers come together to discuss emerging key trends, challenges, opportunities, and innovations in the biotechnology industry. With sessions led by top biotech executives, our agenda is designed to discuss current trends, strategic insights, and best practices in key topics like AAV manufacturing, cell and gene therapy, capacity management, quality assurance, quality control, regulatory compliance, operational excellence, supply chain and logistics. Network with your fellow biopharma leaders as we explore strategies to maximize efficiency while remaining compliant within the biomanufacturing space.

If you’re interested in presenting at this year’s event, the WE Call for Participation (CFP) process for Breakout Sessions (Listen & Learn Lectures, Engaged Exchange Panels, and Snap Sessions) is now open. The WE CFP process is highly competitive — SWE receives over a thousand submissions each year! In order to review all the submissions we receive, we solicit SWE members with subject matter expertise to review and score proposals according to an established process and rubric.

eXXec provides a safe, personal and engaging leadership development experience for 15-20 influential leaders, providing the opportunity to form a peer support network during and after the event. To obtain the most out of the program, attendees are encouraged to engage with the learning process, including multiple pre and post-event learning opportunities, all focused around the three leadership pillars. The in-person event begins on Monday, June 23, 2025, with the Welcome Reception at 6 pm CST, followed by three days of learning with leading subject matter experts. eXXec offers 1.7 CEUs/17 PDH for those who complete the program. Target attendee: Priority acceptance is provided to those mid-level professionals with an engineering or technology academic degree and 10-15 years of professional experience with 3+ years as a team leader.

Stacy Cassio is the Founder & CEO of the Pink Mentor Network. Stacy understands the importance of mentorship because her own career & business have been built on the opportunities introduced to her by mentors. In 2017, Stacy Cassio founded the Pink Mentor Network to overcome the shortage of female mentorship in male-dominated industries. This community introduced a brand new model for mentorship. Today, that model is being used by organizations of all sizes & industries to build transparent, scalable, measurable employee development & support programs. Stacy is dedicating her life to helping organizations build cultures of mentorship one teammate at a time. By the end of this course, you should be able to: Identify the six categories of mentorship every professional needs and how they align with their personal development plans & career paths; Analyze the roles and benefits of informal, formal, and sponsorship-based mentorships, and create strategies to effectively seek out and utilize each type for career advancement; Develop a mentorship framework specific to each stage of their career.

The only conference dedicated to all the diverse groups that comprise our engineering and computing workforce.The vision of the CoNECD (pronounced, “connected”) Conference is to provide a forum for exploring current research and practices to enhance diversity and inclusion of all underrepresented populations in the engineering and computing professions including gender identity and expression, race and ethnicity, disability, veterans, LGBTQ+, 1st generation and socio-economic status. This could byour community if your work supports broadening participation in engineering and computing – well pretty much all STEM fields. CoNECD supports both researchers and practitioners! You can find collaborators for your own research and learn what is currently being done within this discipline. See practical applications of evidenced based research into how to broaden participation. You can showcase your work through a technical session or a workshop.

The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) held its annual conference on Oct. 24-26 in Chicago at McCormick Place, the largest convention venue in North America. With a record-setting 19,100+ attendees, the event was a resounding success on many fronts, including sustainability. McCormick Place is the largest convention venue in North America and an Events Industry Council silver-certified facility for Sustainable Events Standards. The venue has scored many hits in sustainable event management. Last year, the venue host, McCormick Place, shared some sustainability metrics with SWE to highlight the impact of the practices implemented and the systems in place during the event: Energy efficiency was prioritized with LED lighting and motion sensor technology installed. McCormick Place also purchased renewable energy certificates to offset 100% of the electricity used on campus. During the WE24 conference, 287,471 kWh of electricity was consumed. Aluminum cans of water and water coolers with five-gallon capacity per unit were used as alternatives to single-use plastic bottles during the conference as aluminum can be recycled multiple times. McCormick Place has an on-site nonprofit partnership committed to reducing food wastage. Housed in the East Kitchen, Fight2Feed rescues and repurposes food from such large-scale events. Thanks to conservation efforts at McCormick Place, 12.13 tons of waste was diverted away from the landfill for a 58% diversion rate during the event. That represents 206 trees saved, 84,910 gallons of water conserved, 48,520 kWh/ton electricity saved, and 958 gallons of oil conserved. It’s important to SWE that our events are not only nurturing and supporting all our attendees, but also the communities in which we host and the environment as a whole. We are proud to partner with event venues like McCormick Place to further these goals. You can save the date for WE25 on Oct. 23-35 in New Orleans.

The C3E webinar series provides a forum to hear the latest on clean energy topics from women who are making a difference. The goal of the quarterly webinars is to highlight the outstanding work of clean energy professionals in various fields and to foster discussion around clean energy opportunities and solutions. Get to know the work of today’s leaders, including C3E Ambassadors and recent Awardees, by participating in an upcoming webinar, followed by a discussion session, allowing participants to ask the speakers questions, share their own ideas and experiences, engage in conversation, and network with other clean energy professionals.

A diverse and inclusive tech workforce is the key to unlocking the full potential of technological innovation. Yet, the field has historically been dominated by a narrow demographic, hindering progress and limiting the scope of solutions. To combat systemic underrepresentation in computing, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Broadening Participation in Computing Alliances, including NCWIT and CSforALL, are tackling this challenge. Backed by significant NSF funding, these organizations set goals and develop initiatives not only to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups in computer science (CS), but also to build a more inclusive and equitable CS education landscape. Established in 2016, CSforALL recognizes that systemic change is essential to improve computer science education. By focusing on institutions such as schools and school districts, curriculum providers, out of school time providers, and funders, a more supportive environment for teachers to deliver culturally-relevant and accessible learning experiences to students is possible. By aligning curriculum with research-based best practices, CSforALL connects members to ensure learners have the opportunity to succeed beyond the K-12 classroom. In 2022, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded the CSforALL Alliance a grant to advance equity in computer science education by promoting inclusive practices, enhancing member capacity, and utilizing data-driven strategies to assess impact. Historically, CSforALL catalyzes the community through time-bound, specific, and measurable pledges known as CSforALL Commitments. In 2024, the alliance activated the CS education community to make commitments aligned specifically to broadening participation in computing (BPC).

The tech industry is currently widely regarded as one of the most innovative and progressive fields, yet even with all of its achievements and perks it has to offer, it continues to grapple with a long-standing issue: the underrepresentation of women. Despite the growing demand for diverse perspectives in the creation and development of modern technology, women remain significantly underrepresented in Computer Science (CS) and engineering. Currently, while the overall percentage of female degree recipients is 53.1%, women make up only 20% of the CS degree holders and 22% of the engineering degree holders. Many argue that this imbalance in percentages stems from the inherent disinterest or unsuitability of women in the tech industry. In 2017, James Damore, a Software Engineer at Google at the time, wrote a memo where he urged the company to stop trying to bring women into tech, because they are inherently unsuitable for the industry, and thus, these efforts just waste everyone’s attention and company’s resources (Damore, 2017). In his argument, Damore referred to the field of Evolutionary Psychology as support for his claims, suggesting that differences in career preferences and abilities between men and women are rooted in biological and psychological traits shaped by evolution.