The University of Illinois is unveiling a new statue on campus that honors women in engineering. The life-size statue, named "The Quintessential Engineer," is located on the east side of the Micro and Nano-technology Laboratory.
The effort was organized by Sakshi Srivastava, a graduate student in electrical engineering. She began the campaign for the statue when she was a junior in the university's undergraduate program in order to inspire women going into the male-dominated engineering field.
Srivastava launched an online petition drive and helped draft resolutions that were supported by the Illinois Student Senate and Academic Senate. The statue was a gift from technology company Texas Instruments and was created by Chicago sculptor Julie Rotblatt-Amrany.
