BHCC Alumna and NSF Fellow Bridget Benner to Participate in STEM Career Pathways Panel at College’s LSAMP Day
Monday, October 26, 2020
Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) alumna and UMass Amherst doctoral candidate Bridget Benner will join panelists from the National Institute of Health and Massachusetts General Hospital for a panel discussion on career pathways in STEM, as part of the College’s second annual Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Day.
Offered in partnership with UMass Boston, the LSAMP grant at BHCC supports internships and career development opportunities for minority students majoring in STEM.
Promoting Women in Science, LSAMP Day will occur on Thursday, November 19, 2020, for students interested in exploring careers in science, engineering, and mathematics. As part of the virtual event, New Mexico State University Professor Rebecca Creamer, Ph.D., will share her personal experience as the only woman on the Microbiology and Plant Pathology faculty at the University of California.
Benner, who studied engineering at BHCC, is currently in her third year of a Ph.D. program at UMass Amherst. She was recently awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Program fellowship to participate in the wind energy REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) at UMass Amherst. Working in the University’s Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering’s Fluid-Structure Interactions Lab, Benner is studying the fundamentals of flow-induced dynamic instabilities (vibrations) of vertical-axis wind turbine blades.
While at UMass, Benner has also received the Edwin V. Sisson Doctoral Fellowship and the Kenneth A. Lloyd Fellowship for graduate students in engineering. She is co-chair of the University’s outreach committee for Graduate Women in STEM, a member of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Graduate Leadership Council, a member of the College of Engineering Dean's Advisory Group, a Spaulding-Smith Fellow, and a Wind Energy Fellow.