“I will have achieved success when I wake up every day and find a way of using my engineering skills to make the world a better place and work for an organization that not only values my work but who I am as a person.”

Alondra Ortiz Ortiz is a fiercely dedicated scientist and community member. Through many obstacles, Alondra has drawn on the discipline and determination she inherited from her mother and grandmother to continue her scientific education. Alondra worked hard and earned admission to the Residential Center of Educational Opportunities of Mayaguez, the top specialized high school in Puerto Rico, and then the mechanical engineering class at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. Though Alondra suffered an accident in high school that led her to develop a chronic pain condition, and though she faced ongoing challenges trying to excel in a field dominated by men, Alondra persisted and earned her undergraduate degree, leaving with determination not only to continue in mechanical engineering but to embrace her identity as a Hispanic woman with disabilities and to make a difference in her field.

Alondra has continued graduate studies in mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, where she is researching new strategies to scale up manufacturing processes for biological and environmental applications. She is also passionately pursuing her goal of creating a more equitable community: she has served as the Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Alliance and the co-leader of the cataLIST: Ladies in Science and Technology organization. She has also participated in outreach events with FEMMES and the Women in Science and Engineering Program, where she has helped lead a virtual book club. She is also part of the Give Merit’s FATE program, serving as a mentor for 17 high school students in Detroit. She is known in the community as “a positive force for change” and a “passionate, hardworking individual.”

Looking forward, Alondra says, “I will have achieved success when I wake up every day and find a way of using my engineering skills to make the world a better place and work for an organization that not only values my work but who I am as a person.”

CEW+ commends Alondra’s dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion and names her an Irma M. Wyman Scholar.