PNNL

PNNL engineer Elizabeth Stephens was recently honored with multiple STEM-related accomplishments.

At the Minorities in Energy Anniversary Forum, Stephens was presented with a “Minorities in Energy Champion” award by former Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and La Doris Harris, the Director of DOE’s Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, which selected Stephens for the award.

Stephens was also chosen to be part of a project called “100 Notable WA Women in STEM” by Washington STEM, a non-profit organization supported by the Washington state business community. She will be featured in a document that promotes STEM to female students in middle school and high school.

To round out her accomplishments, Stephens was featured in an Energy Efficiency Challenge video. The purpose of the video is to promote STEM education to female middle school students.

Stephens promotes STEM education in a variety of ways, from conducting workshops to providing technical assistance at academic competitions. One of her most notable contributions was successfully preparing community partners and educators to teach a programming component of the MESA (Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement) annual engineering design challenge for students. Stephens has also dedicated numerous evenings and weekends to running workshops for students and parents on STEM-field career development. Her contributions have impacted over 1200 students, 150 teachers, and 250 principals throughout the years.

About Stephens

Stephens joined PNNL in 2002. She leads programmatic efforts to understand the environmental degradation of materials and to develop joining and processing methods for advanced lightweight materials that can be used to manufacture automobiles. Elizabeth’s work also contributes to the DOE’s Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance program through efforts to develop solid state oxide fuel cells for stationary applications. Stephens has authored or co-authored 16 journal articles, 17 conference proceedings, and 40 technical reports internal to the client.