The Women of Color (WOC) STEM Conference has announced 2007 award winner Veronica Nelson as a special guest host for this week’s Women to Watch Summit on Friday, May 6. The event will be held on the WOC digital twin experience (DTX) platform and STEM City.

The first annual summit aims to encourage women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to connect. The event will include relatable topics on worker burnout and work-life balance.

Nelson will share the experiences that helped shape her career. Her professional life is steeped in engineering management and university/diversity recruitment, with leadership roles in both corporate and non-profit areas.

As executive director of Advancing Minorities’ Interest in Engineering (AMIE), she leads the non-profit organization as it supports programs to educate, graduate, and place minority students in engineering careers.

She came to AMIE after having served as a senior associate for Booz Allen Hamilton and managing the development of the Automated Surface Mount Assembly Line in Northrop Grumman’s mission systems sector. She also has experience in human resources management of career pathways programs, diversity recruiting, new graduate professional development rotation programs, intern/co-op programs, and university relations & recruiting at Northrop Grumman Corporation.

As a senior associate at Booz Allen, she was responsible for developing strategies for university and diversity recruiting. She has also served on multiple engineering industry advisory boards and technical advisory boards focused on increasing the STEM pipeline and enhancing engineering education.

In 2007, Nelson was awarded the Women of Color in Technology Award for Educational Leadership-Corporate Promotion of Education and is the 2009 winner of the BEYA for Educational Leadership-Promotion of Higher Education.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson and a master’s degree with a concentration in robotics from Howard University. She received the National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science (GEM) Fellowship and was the first woman to obtain a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Howard.