Skip to main content Skip to secondary navigation
Spotlight

 Laura Marino

MS ’86, Civil & Environmental Engineering; MS ’98, Management Science and Engineering
#IAmAnEngineer, and I believe engineering gives you the foundation to pursue your passion and add value to the world on any path you choose.

I come from a family of engineers in Colombia. My father was a civil engineer. Two of my siblings and I are engineers. I knew that I was going to go into engineering, because I liked science. I was always curious about how things work, why things work. My engineering background has allowed me to help build products. But engineering is much broader than that. As an engineer, I have been able to move from something quite technical, developing hydrologic simulation models for reservoir operations, to a business-focused role leading product management at Intapp, a software provider to the legal, accounting and financial industries. Combining technology and business is a something engineers are uniquely able to do.

I am concerned that fewer women are currently going into engineering, probably because of extreme stereotypes. For example, in computer science, girls may believe that being a computer scientist means you are spending 24 hours a day in front of a computer or playing video games all of the time. But that’s not the reality. If you study computer science, you can move into product management, business, whatever you want. I don’t think girls see it that way. The more that these stereotypes are in mainstream media, like movies, the more girls are going to look for other things to do.

I believe that women can play a significant role in technology. In addition to my work at Intapp, I am a board member for a nonprofit called Leading Women in Technology. This organization offers a program to help women move forward in their careers. It’s geared toward women who have been in the workforce for a bit, but now they feel like they need help moving their careers forward, especially in technology, which is a male-dominated environment.

Related spotlights

Portrait of Thomas Colburn in a gray suit, standing outside on a sunny day in the engineering quad.

Thomas Colburn

PhD candidate
Materials Science and Engineering
I was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. We were surrounded by nature, so my siblings and friends and I spent a lot of time exploring the wilderness and getting lost in the woods.
Read Thomas Colburn's story
Adrienne sitting outside at a table, wearing a blue coat and smiling at the camera.

Adrienne Propp

PhD candidate
Institute for Computational & Mathematical Engineering
I never planned to become a mathematician. I liked math growing up because it made sense to me – plug this number into this equation here, and you’ll get an output that follows some predictable logic.
Read Adrienne Propp's story