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"I was the little helper of my father, a self-taught electrician who made radio and TV sets in his spare time. That's why I chose electrical engineering as my major in college. I was pretty strong in math and physics, and that helped a lot, too. My father taught me that girls can do anything that boys can. He encouraged me to compete with boys in sports and academics. I never thought to myself, "That's girly or not girly." In China I felt less discrimination between boys and girls during the 1980s when I was in college. Here, I saw with my own children that gender stereotypes are very well articulated, in TV shows, in social media, in schools where girls are turned off at a very young age. In all professional fields, women are also evaluated lower than what they deserve. Therefore, we have to work hard to change this situation. We have to educate the children and to improve gender equality - and also support each and every woman professional.

I teach wireless communications in electric engineering, which require a lot of math because we use statistical models to describe information and the effect of environment on signals. I developed my research program for underwater wireless technologies over the last fifteen years. We use sound waves to transmit and receive and build wireless sensor networks underwater. Those are critical technologies for monitoring underwater infrastructures: bridges, river banks, levees, oil and water supply pipes. My algorithms are also designed for supporting Unmanned Underwater Vehicles and Underwater Internet of Things. Underwater wireless communication is still a big challenge because it is difficult to achieve long distance transmission and high bandwidth at the same time. We are working on building reliable underwater Wi-Fi for UUVs, underwater robots, and underwater sensors."

Y. Rosa Zheng
Professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA

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