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UNM Engineering alumna honored as a Women in Technology Award winner

July 9, 2020 - Kim Delker

photo of Carol Adkins
Carol Adkins

Carol Adkins, director of energy and Earth systems research at Sandia National Laboratories, was one of six Women in Technology Award winners for 2020 given by the New Mexico Technology Council to honor outstanding women in STEM.

Honrees were celebrated in a virtual ceremony July 9.

Adkins received her bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from UNM in 1981 and her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1987.  She has served in a variety of roles at Sandia. She served on the National Academies Board on Manufacturing, Engineering and Design from 2003-2006. In 2007, she served on the National Academies committee to assess the continuing need and value of the defense national stockpile, and the Panel on Manufacturing Engineering that assessed NIST’s Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory. She has mentored a number of undergraduate engineers at Caltech and supported women at Sandia as co-chair of the Sandia Women’s Action Network. She received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Engineering in 2015.

In addition, two students were awarded with a Women in Technology scholarship, sponsored by Nusenda Credit Union. The 2020 winner of the $5,000 scholarship was Anna Janicek, an undergraduate student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a student in the Honors College. She works in the pulsed power laboratory of Edl Schamiloglu.