Woman Engineer of the Month: Dr. Shama Iyer

Inspired by her mother—who always conducted science experiments—as well as a growing curiosity around how the human body works due to her grandfather’s battle with a neurodegenerative disease, Dr. Shama Iyer’s interest in engineering blossomed at a young age.

She went on to pursue an undergraduate degree in biological engineering at Cornell University in New York. Iyer’s education continued at the Ivy League college, where her graduate school research focused on skeletal muscle.

“I wanted to find out how we could find means of helping others with neurodegenerative disease,” says Iyer, an assistant professor of engineering at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. “Engineering was always there, you can help out a community and you can provide this service.”

Though rewarding, she found graduate school to be a competitive environment. Being a female in a male-dominated space came with some challenges. However, Iyer was “privileged” to have support from both her parents and mentors, who gave her needed confidence.

“If you got a grant or something along those lines, I think a frequent comment that could be heard would be, ‘oh, you got it because you're a girl or you got it because you're X and X,’” she adds. “It can be demoralizing.”

In addition to completing her studies, she also participated in a community outreach program that taught science and math to underprivileged children in New York—whose ages ranged from elementary to high school. 

“Seeing those students talking enthusiastically about science and math and finally getting a concept was something that I enjoyed,” Iyer says. “It’s definitely something I'll count as one of the highlights (of my career).”

After graduating from Cornell in 2015, she was interested in learning more about muscles. Iyer joined the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), which is home to a training program for muscle biology.

But after several years of research on muscle physiology, Iyer wanted a change. In January 2022, she joined Marymount University’s faculty as an assistant professor of engineering.

Iyer plans to start full time at the university in August after wrapping up her research at UMB.

“What really attracted me (to Marymount) was there's this angle for this new engineering program to be service driven,” she says. “So it goes back to how I got motivated to join engineering and I felt like it was aligned with that. I love the opportunity to build the program from the ground up.”  

As someone hoping to teach the next generation of engineers, Iyer advises young girls to “not be afraid to make mistakes.”

“We all make mistakes, she adds. “I make mistakes on a daily basis, but that does not mean that you're not good at science.”