Â鶹ÊÓƵ

Â鶹ÊÓƵ’s high-energy X-plore Electrical Engineering summer camp offers 7^th and 8^th grade girls the opportunity to discover the potential of a career in electrical engineering this week with hands-on learning in circuits, programming, robotics and more.

“We have some very exciting activities planned and hope that the girls will leave at the end of the week with a knowledge and understanding of the field of electrical engineering,” said Harley Myler, professor and chair of the Phillip M. Drayer Department of Electrical Engineering.

Women are under-represented in engineering, and no engineering discipline has fewer women than electrical engineering, Myler said. “We hope to help the X-plorers understand what EE’s do and what it takes to become an electrical engineer so they might consider the profession as their education progresses.”

“As 7th and 8th graders, these students will soon be making critical decisions as it relates to their future in terms of high school curriculum paths and this also will be discussed, albeit in an informal way, during the camp.”

Two Spring 2016 graduates of Â鶹ÊÓƵ’s electrical engineering program, Tyler Doiron and Joel Lozano, will serve as camp counselors.

“Tyler was also a double-major in mathematics and she can quickly convince anyone that math is a great area of study and goes well with EE,” Myler said.

Also assisting with the camp is Tyler Mackey, a senior majoring in electrical engineering and president of the Lamar student branch of IEEE.

“These three are some of best and are very passionate about electrical engineering,” Myler said.

Â鶹ÊÓƵEE alumnus, James Bruce, Professor of Electrical Engineering Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who recently retired as MIT's VP of Information Technology, is underwriting the camp. Bruce received bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics in 1958 from Lamar and went on to do graduate work leading to the Ph.D. at MIT.