History of WISE

Directors of Women`s Studies Diane Murphy and Priti Ramamurthy, along with Earth Sciences Chair Cathryn Newton first submitted a proposal for a Women in Science and Engineering program at Syracuse University in fall 1996. Although the proposal was not funded, they continued to work on the program over the next year. In fall 1997, the Senate Committee on Women`s Concerns recognized the scarcity of women faculty in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering. In October, Deans Bogucz and Jensen appointed Drs. Shobha Bhatia and Cathryn Newton as co-facilitators of the WISE project.

During the next year, the two women researched similar programs at other universities and met with several women faculty members to begin forming the program. In the end, they decided on three key elements that WISE would focus on:

1. Increased hiring of women faculty in sciences, mathematics, engineering, and computer sciences;
2. A campus-wide lecture series that will bring distinguished women in these fields to Syracuse University;
3. An advising and mentoring program where female faculty assist students beginning research projects in the lab or in the field.

WISE Leadership

Wise Co-Director, Dr. Marina Artuso

Dr. Artuso joined Syracuse University in 1986. She received her Ph.D. degree from the Northwestern University. She has been actively engaged in the experimental study of the quark mixing parametrization and in the physics task force that evaluated the potential of electron positron colliders to discover CP violation asymmetries in B meson decays. She participated in the R&D toward the CLEO II silicon detector. She has led the design and production of the readout electronics for the CLEO III Ring Imaging Detector.

WISE Co-Director and Co-Founder, Dr. Shobha Bhatia

Dr. Bhatia joined the faculty at Syracuse University in 1980. She received her Ph.D. in 1981 from the University of British Columbia. She teaches courses in many areas, including geosynthetic design, earth embankment and dam design, earthquake engineering, and soil properties. Currently, her research interests include geosynthetic applications in civil engineering, image processing, microstructure analysis of geotextiles and soils, and soil dynamics.

WISE Co-Founder, Dr. Cathryn R. Newton

Dr. Newton has been at Syracuse since 1993. She received her Ph.D. in 1983 from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has taught courses in palebiology as well as paleoecology. Her research programs have emphasized interdisciplinary approaches to marine mass extinction and environmental change. Dr. Newton currently is the Dean of College of Arts and Sciences.