In less than 100 days, it'll be the 28th annual Women of Color in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Conference week. Over the next couple of months, we will be bringing you powerful quotes from past winners of WOC STEM awards. Click here to register.

Delia Grenville, 2015 Technologist of the Year

“The award opened up a lot of career conversations in and outside of my company,” Grenville told Women of Color magazine. “It definitely gave me access to executive-level connections and conversations I wasn’t having before. I don’t think where I was in middle management, those conversations would have occurred as quickly.”

2021 Technologist of the Year, Dr. Mei Cai

“GM does a very good job in diversity and inclusion. For the past 25 years, I have worked with people in cross-functional teams, and respect for others and other cultures is important. At GM, I see a lot of women scientists and engineers. However, a lot of women might not know about all the opportunities in the automotive industry. If GM had not come back to me after my second internship, I would not have known. We need to do more to educate and inform women about jobs in the auto industry.”

“I’m excited by the NSF’s ten big ideas that will impact most significantly. Seeding innovation, harnessing the data revolution, and the future of work at the human-technology frontier are but a few of these ideas that will bring people together to solve global problems."

"Growing up, I wasn’t exactly sure where my love for STEM would lead. Unfortunately, in the world we live in, there aren’t too many paths laid out for an African American girl from Detroit interested in learning about how things worked. So, I decided to forge my own."

“Industry is always going to need people who can innovate. The technology we have today wasn’t here when our parents were young. We Americans love to be the first at doing something. Innovation is a part of our core.”

"The future is never an exact repetition of the past. You have to take risks.”

“Any time you are driving for results and moving fast, you will make mistakes. Don’t pretend you have all the answers. Having a level of humility goes a long way.”

"While working to improve an existing product and in the process of trying to understand how the software worked for the product, I realized we were solving the wrong mathematical problem; a nearby problem, but still the wrong problem. Recognizing and fixing the issue which significantly improved performance brought me a real sense of accomplishment."

"Remember along the way, engineering is a great adventure."

"I knew that if I was going to have a better life this was the field to focus on, back in the early 1970s."

"I didn’t grow up where people talked about stocks around the table at night or what was going to happen in the market the next day. But I was fortunate to work for the first female vice president at Northrop Grumman. Suzanne used to tell us ‘If you want to work in this industry and you want to be competitive, you’ve got learn how to have 'rhino hide'—not take anything personally.’”

“When I started doing research in ceramics, I came up with theories based on rocks that were different from the conventional wisdom at Corning. The experts did not agree with me and they were not interested in me coming up with different theories. I don't want anybody to go through that kind of pain of being undervalued.”

“I would like to share a quotation. It's part of a Sanskrit shloka ( a form of Hindu prayer) from the Gita: 'Karmanyeva dhikaraste, ma faleshu kadachanam.' This means we have a right to our work and duty but do not have a total claim on the results and achievements.”