Penn State Harrisburg students Maryam Abdelaal and Joy Gitonga finished first in Penn State Altoona’s Women in Engineering Design Competition, which was sponsored by the Rail Transportation Engineering (RTE) program. Both the winners received $1,500 scholarship each.
The competition was held in 2021, and had three rounds, starting with an online quiz that included questions about rail transportation engineering. The second round had a research design portion, from which winners went to the final round, where they were tasked with solving a hands-on railway yard design and operations problem. Amongst them, five teams presented to and fielded questions from a judge's panel.
After winning the competition Maryam Abdelaal and Joy Gitonga expressed their gratitude for the opportunity, they received. Abdelaal and Gitonga credited faculty members Fariborz Tavangarian, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State Harrisburg, and Faeze Ghofrani, assistant teaching professor of rail transportation engineering at Penn State Altoona, for their guidance.