Meet our Executive Team!
The Houston Area section is led by local voting members that have been elected by the local section to serve one fiscal year from July 1st to June 30th to represent the Executive Council (EC). The EC is assisted by several committees. Additionally, SWE-HA has a Board of Trustees (BOT) that consists of 4 senior SWE-HA members that each serve a 3 year term also elected by the local section.
Mary Katherine (MK) Spiegelhauer - President
Mary Katherine (MK) Spiegelhauer grew up in Austin, TX. She earned her B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2012. While at Georgia Tech, MK was an active participant in the collegiate SWE section, serving two terms as the VP of Outreach and one as VP of Membership. After graduating, MK moved back to Texas to work for Dow in the Houston area. She has had several roles including a process engineer doing engineering design work for projects and a production engineer in a glycol ethers and amines plant. Her current role is a R&D process development engineer supporting scale-up projects. MK has been an active participant in the SWE-HA section since she moved to Houston. She served as the membership chair in FY14, the VP-Internal in FY15 and FY16, Secretary in FY18, and Treasurer in FY19. She also is the co-chair for Dow’s SWE CPC (Corporate Partnership Council) team. She lives in the Third Ward with her husband Travis. Her favorite part about SWE is getting to meet and learn from outstanding women.
Alex Ayoroa - VP External
Alex is a Regional Sales Manager for Mokveld in North and Latin America. Her job with the company currently involves developing business in the Oil and Gas industry, identifying, and developing marketing strategies in the North and Latin American markets and understanding and prioritizing market segments for a manufacturer of engineered axial flow control products. In addition to her job at Mokveld, Alex is involved with the community and together with a group of activists has started a non-profit organization called Vegan For Life with the intent to keep on bringing to Houston animal welfare awareness in the form of festivals, workshops, and other activism.
Alex was born and raised in La, Paz, Bolivia. After graduating from high school, she immigrated to the USA and received an Agricultural Engineering Degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she participated in doing research under Dr. Eckhoff, a leading scientist in the fields of corn fractionation, wet milling, dry milling, and ethanol production. Alex also volunteered and wrote articles for the feminist magazine Pandora's Rag, a publication which has been resurrected in 2015 after going on hiatus.
Alex is the proud mother of two young adults who are productive members of society.
Alex was born and raised in La, Paz, Bolivia. After graduating from high school, she immigrated to the USA and received an Agricultural Engineering Degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she participated in doing research under Dr. Eckhoff, a leading scientist in the fields of corn fractionation, wet milling, dry milling, and ethanol production. Alex also volunteered and wrote articles for the feminist magazine Pandora's Rag, a publication which has been resurrected in 2015 after going on hiatus.
Alex is the proud mother of two young adults who are productive members of society.
Jennifer Bongiorno- VP Internal
Though trained as a chemical engineer, Jennifer Bongiorno has worked as a petroleum engineer throughout her career. She is about to begin her eighth year at Chevron, where she builds and analyzes integrated models that replicate oil and gas production systems from reservoir to topside separator. These models are used to optimize full field management and improve production forecasting. Before her current assignment, Jennifer lived and worked in Bakersfield, California for seven years, where she not only gained hands-on field experience in logging and production engineering but also developed her planning and facilitation skills as a reservoir engineer.
Jennifer has held several leadership positions in Chevron’s employee networks over the last four years, including serving as co-site lead for the Bakersfield Women’s Network. What she is most proud of during that role was persuading business unit leadership that a diversity and inclusion initiative occurring in Chevron’s Houston office would still be successful in a smaller, more rural environment, and laying the groundwork for the program's launch two years later. Outside of work, Jennifer enjoys reading and traveling both domestically and internationally with her husband; she only has four states left to visit!
Jennifer has held several leadership positions in Chevron’s employee networks over the last four years, including serving as co-site lead for the Bakersfield Women’s Network. What she is most proud of during that role was persuading business unit leadership that a diversity and inclusion initiative occurring in Chevron’s Houston office would still be successful in a smaller, more rural environment, and laying the groundwork for the program's launch two years later. Outside of work, Jennifer enjoys reading and traveling both domestically and internationally with her husband; she only has four states left to visit!
Tamara Rodriguez - VP Career Guidance
Tamara Rodriguez Diaz is a Water Resources Design Engineer at Johnson, Mirmiran, and Thompson (JMT). She earned her B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. Tamara is an experienced Civil Engineer with 5 years of experienced in the transportation engineering industry. Her significant projects have included the analysis and design of highways, local roadways, roadway drainage design, and railway projects. She is
passionate about supporting women in STEM and promoting the education of STEM programs within young girls from K-12. Tamara has been an active member of SWE since 2010. She was the Vice President of Outreach (2012-2014) for two consecutive years at the SWE Student Chapter of the University of Puerto Rico. As the VP of Outreach. she was the coordinator of WOW! That’s Engineering, impacting over 400 middle school and high school students. In 2016, she transitioned from a collegiate membership to a professional membership and joined the Houston’s Chapter (SWE-HA). Tamara has been an active member and was co-chair of the chapter’s main outreach event, Introduce a Girl to Engineering, for the past two years. In her spare time, you can find her playing tennis, reading, and traveling. |
Emily Anne Bautista - Secretary
Emily Anne Bautista is a recent graduate of Virginia Tech, with a degree in Materials Science and Engineering. While in school, she was very active in her SWE section, serving on several committees before becoming Vice President for two terms and then President her senior year. Last year, she held the position of Tech Tour Chair within SWE-HA.
She has worked at various manufacturing sites within 3M, GE Aviation, and now ExxonMobil for the last 5 years. In her free time, she enjoys finding and engaging in community events, listening to podcasts, and knitting (sometimes at the same time!). She also loves cats and has a kitten who she adores. Though both Emily and her fiance were born and raised in KY and have only been in Houston for less than a year, she can’t imagine living anywhere else!
She has worked at various manufacturing sites within 3M, GE Aviation, and now ExxonMobil for the last 5 years. In her free time, she enjoys finding and engaging in community events, listening to podcasts, and knitting (sometimes at the same time!). She also loves cats and has a kitten who she adores. Though both Emily and her fiance were born and raised in KY and have only been in Houston for less than a year, she can’t imagine living anywhere else!
Kristin Powell - Treasurer
Dr. Kristin Powell is Lead R&D Chemical Engineer of Tomson Technologies. In this role, she leads multi-year, multi-million dollar research projects to develop novel technologies for the oil and gas industry. Dr. Powell holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Florida, where her doctoral research focused on understanding how interfacial properties of multi-phase systems affect bulk behavior with an emphasis on oil-water interfaces, emulsions, and nanoparticle systems. Her industrial research has primarily focused on developing specialty formulations for slow release technologies. Kristin has additionally received two graduate certificates in Engineering Entrepreneurship and Engineering Safety from the University of Florida.
Kristin became involved in the Society of Women Engineers during graduate school when she worked at the University of Florida table at national career fairs and won 1st place in the SWE national technical poster competition. Last year, Kristin supported SWE Houston as their representative on the Houston Engineers Week Committee.
Kristin became involved in the Society of Women Engineers during graduate school when she worked at the University of Florida table at national career fairs and won 1st place in the SWE national technical poster competition. Last year, Kristin supported SWE Houston as their representative on the Houston Engineers Week Committee.
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