Yellowstone Times

Around 300 attendees gathered at the Strand Union Building ballrooms at Montana State University for the 22nd annual Women in Engineering Dinner on April 11. The event aimed to celebrate and support women pursuing engineering, a field traditionally dominated by men.

Participants mostly included women from MSU’s Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering, alongside alumni, faculty, and staff. Erika Wagner, the head of U.S. business development at The Exploration Company, served as the keynote speaker. She described her company as one of the world’s fastest-growing space companies and spoke about its focus on building reusable space capsules and lunar landers.

Christine Foreman, associate dean for student success in the engineering college, introduced Wagner, describing her as "an engineer, a program manager and a business professional who is passionate about space innovation and humanity’s grand challenges."

Wagner’s background is in aerospace and biomedical engineering, with a doctorate from the Harvard University/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Program in Health Sciences and Technology. Prior to her current role, she worked at Blue Origin for more than 12 years, a company known for aviation and aerospace manufacturing. Blue Origin recently made headlines by sending an all-female civilian crew to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere.

In her address, Wagner discussed the growth of space exploration and finding a work/life balance. She emphasized the need for inclusivity: "The doors to space are opening wider and wider," she noted, adding that there are various career paths in the space field beyond just being an astronaut.

Wagner shared an anecdote about Sally Ride's space mission in the early 1980s to emphasize understanding user needs: “He asked her what she would need for the mission, and she said some tampons, so they packed her 100 for a seven-day mission,” which drew laughter from the audience. “Good engineers need to understand the users.”

She also encouraged students to engage with student clubs and hands-on projects, calling it the “single most important thing I ever did in my education." Wagner highlighted the global expansion of space exploration: “When I was a kid, there were 10 nations that had been into space. Today there are 51.”

Wagner concluded by urging the audience to listen to their instincts and pursue their dreams. She asked rhetorically, “What does the still, small inner voice in your head tell you about your dreams?”

Montana State University's engineering college features 26 tenure-track female faculty, 15 non-tenure-track faculty, and 691 female students, making up 20% of the total college enrollment.