Chavela, a doctoral student in Purdue's School of Engineering Education, is one of five women selected by Purdue to participate in the summit.

The Womensphere with Newsweek Emerging Leaders Global Summit 2011 is a unique convention of the next generation of women leaders in America and around the world, and will serve as a platform for the next generation of women leaders to convene and share informed perspectives on important issues that affect our global society—economic, environmental, socio-political, cultural, leadership-related issues—as well as to deliberate and weigh in on solutions, through public policy, innovation, entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, private sector investments, and the power of music, arts and culture to unite people in our global community.

The Womensphere with Newsweek Emerging Leaders Global Summit is on the weekend right before the World Economic Forum (January 26-30) in Davos, Switzerland.

A key objective of the Emerging Leaders Global Summit is to showcase the perspectives of the next generation of women leaders and share these perspectives—through video, articles, essays, blogs, and multimedia—to the world leaders convening at Davos the weekend right after the Emerging Leaders Summit, so that global dialogue and global policy-making are informed and enriched by the perspectives of the participating young women—our future leaders.

The summit will offer a live platform (during the summit) and multi-media platform (post-summit) through which the next generation of women leaders can participate in the global dialogue on issues affecting our planet and our global community.