48. Sheila Wells - Electrical Engineer, Telecommunications Engineer, Utility Industry

Ordinarily Extraordinary - Conversations with women in STEM

Sheila Wells is a Telecommunications Engineer in the utility industry. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Informations Systems – Communications Technology. She has worked in the utility industry for 30 years and wants to encourage more women to go into the industry. Sheila has a deep passion for her career and life.
Episode Notes
Music used in the podcast: Higher Up, Silverman Sound Studio
Acronyms, Definitions & Fact Check
SONET – Synchronous Optical Networking and synchronous digital hierarchy are standardized protocols that transfer multiple digital bit streams synchronously over optical fiber using lasers or highly coherent light from light-emitting diodes. At low transmission rates data can also be transferred via an electrical interface. (wikipedia)
Wireless Co-location – he act of placing multiple (sometimes related) entities within a single location. (wikipedia)
Electric power quality is the degree to which the voltage, frequency, and waveform of a power supply system conform to established specifications. (wikipedia)
“Invisible Women“, Caroline Criado Pérez. Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development, to healthcare, to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this bias, in time, money, and often with their lives. (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41104077-invisible-women)
Are COVID vaccines designed for men? Preliminary data from the earliest vaccinations in December suggest that women are reporting more severe vaccine side effects than men. In February, the CDC released data on adverse effects during the first month of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, finding that while women received 61 percent of vaccine doses, 72 percent of the side effects reported to the agency were from women. (https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/sex-and-gender-and-covid-19-vaccine-side-effects/)
Women made gains – from 8% of STEM workers in 1970 to 27% in 2019 – but men still dominated the field. Men made up 52% of all U.S. workers but 73% of all STEM workers. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that in 2015 the percentage of women of color attending higher education institutions who earned STEM degrees was:

• Asian women: 5%
• Black women: 2.9%
• Latinas: 3.8%

Optical Ground Wire (OPGW) – a type of cable that is used in overhead power lines. Such cable combines the functions of grounding and communications. An OPGW cable contains a tubular structure with one or more optical fibers in it, surrounded by layers of steel and aluminum wire. (wikipedia)
Multiple Address System (MAS) – A basic MAS radio link consists of a master radio transmitter/receiver unit and multiple remote radio transmitter/receiver units. A master unit can access or poll multiple units via a pair of transmit/receive frequencies. (http://xanthus-consulting.com/IntelliGrid_Architecture/New_Technologies/Tech_Multiple_Address_(MAS)_Radio.htm)