Marlayna Tuiasosopo

You can see that engineer is number six on my list. It’s odd for me to introduce myself to someone without incorporating or explaining these other aspects of me. When I was at Stanford, there was only one other electrical engineer in my class besides me that wasn’t Asian or white. I’m actually the only female Samoan electrical engineer that I know or have ever heard of. This is something that bothers me and I worry about often. As a result, I’m really active in trying to create awareness around the lack of diversity in this industry. In my current position I work as a wireless applications engineer for Rohde & Schwarz. I train our customers working on the cutting edge of cellular devices and network operations. Every time I step into a lab or conference room for a training session, I know I’m dispelling stereotypes of what an engineer can look like.

I recently joined the board of a movement in East Palo Alto called StreetCode Academy. This is an effort to bring cultural diversity to an industry that is severely lacking it. We are investing in youth in East Palo Alto by teaching youth how to code and providing an environment to support and encourage youth to code. Anyone can learn how to code. And pretty soon, learning how to code is going to be like learning how to read. It’s important that we encourage a diverse set of people working in the engineering industry. By increasing diversity, we’re able to look at problems from multiple perspectives and address problems that matter to more people.