Engineering Fellow, ME student Pandya leaves indelible mark on community for women in mechanical engineering
Maitri Pandya, a senior in mechanical engineering, was one of seven students named Purdue Engineering Fellows in September 2024.
Maitri Pandya enjoys embracing a good challenge.
She also tends to leave peers and advisors “awestruck” and “impressed” in the wake of her successes.
Pandya, a student studying mechanical engineering and part of the College of Engineering Honors Program (EHP), has been called “a positive force” in pioneering Women in Mechanical Engineering (WiME) and “well-respected” as an involved leader in the Purdue Society of Women Engineers (SWE).
Her work was recognized as deeply impactful on Purdue University when she was honored as one of seven Engineering Fellows in September 2024.
“Maitri embodies the essence of a Purdue Engineering Fellow through her exemplary leadership, unwavering dedication, innovative mindset and significant contributions to the College of Engineering and beyond,” wrote Women in Engineering (WiE) Program participant and friend of Pandya’s, Jennifer Ascher (BSME ’22), in a nomination letter.
The work Pandya would do to better Purdue began with advice from Pandya’s mother.
Going out of state for college was at the forefront of Pandya’s ideal college choice. A good chemical engineering program was the second priority. Her mother suggested she look into Purdue for the best of both worlds, even if it was in middle-of-nowhere Indiana.
“As I narrowed down my options, Purdue was the result,” said Pandya, from Greater Fayetteville, Arkansas. “I loved it the moment I stepped on campus.”
Pandya was a self-proclaimed “science person” who thrived in high school chemistry. But once she was introduced to calculus-based physics and programming technology in a first-year class, Pandya was hooked on mechanical engineering. Excitement about a Purdue education powered her to actively participate on campus, striking up conversations with hallmates in the EHP and joining every engineering organization or event she could find.
As the fall 2021 semester drew to a close, Pandya’s involvement was just ramping up. She applied to be a member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and accepted a board position as outreach committee chair in the spring of 2022. She took part in mentoring programs and helped foster friendships and connections however she could, even as a first-year student.
“(SWE) helped me instill confidence,” Pandya said. “I can contribute to these organizations, and I matter to these people. It was very impactful for me.”
She also dove into the Women in Engineering (WiE) Program from the first callout meeting of the year, anticipating meeting and welcoming other women in engineering into the community.
Mackenzie Misterka, another student studying mechanical engineering, gravitated toward Pandya’s ambition. It was something the “two ambitious strangers” had in common.
“We bonded over a vision of enhancing the school of mechanical engineering for women to flourish academically, personally and professionally,” said Misterka, now a senior.
The two would bond further when working on an ambitious, challenging and highly impactful project together as part of the women in mechanical engineering task force.
Progress made
The fall 2022 semester saw the addition of 281 women to the School of Mechanical Engineering. Pandya and Misterka were among those transitioning into ME.
Then a sophomore, Pandya was invited to be on the women in mechanical engineering task force. The task force was made to create, maintain and eventually recruit young women to the discipline through community events and a variety of engineering experiences.
Misterka and Pandya developed Women in Mechanical Engineering (WiME) as co-presidents from the spring of 2023 to the spring of 2024.
“Our sophomore year was a lot of asking ourselves, ‘What do we want WiME to look like?’” Pandya said. “Then our junior year was making the transition from one set of leaders to another easier, setting a precedent for years to come.”
WiME began hosting events in the spring of 2023 and quickly became a draw for students considering Purdue for mechanical engineering. Meetings included a variety of activities, a WiME Symposium established in 2022, an up-to-date website and a clear mission “to facilitate a community that ensures women feel welcome and empowered in Purdue Mechanical Engineering.”
The challenge of running positive and empowering events on a budget excited Pandya. She was determined to make each woman in WiME feel seen and appreciated, just as she had felt coming into SWE. At a Galentine’s event in 2023, the participants wrote each other valentines to take home in a cozy environment assembled by the WiME team.
But that wasn’t all: Pandya and her leadership team surprised the Galentine’s attendees with flowers, attached to each handwritten note.
“It was a great icebreaker and a fun way to get the women in the program together,” Pandya said. “We’ve done a Galentine’s event every year so far.”
The program and its positive, uplifting and supportive mission impacted ME’s enrollment of young women. In Fall 2023, 23% of the mechanical engineering students transitioning into the major were women. It demonstrated a 7 percent increase from the fall before.
The jump in numbers was “a direct result of tireless efforts from WiME leaders like Maitri,” co-president Misterka wrote. “Mentorship is always at the forefront of her mind.”
Pandya remained an involved leader of WiME, even after transitioning out of a leadership role in 2024. The same year, she was elected SWE vice president of internal affairs by hundreds of her peers, creating events to keep the rich community of women connected.
“Being a part of WiME has defined my college experience and helped me grow in my autonomy and my community,” Pandya said. “College would not have been possible without my peers.”
An impact that transcends campus
Pandya’s passions revolve around creating new and exciting community opportunities. But in 2022, an Honors class introduced her to an unexpected new passion: coding.
When the opportunity to create a product testing stand via code arose at Central States Manufacturing, Inc. in Arkansas, Pandya happily accepted a position as a product engineering intern. It was the summer before she officially began her ME curriculum.
Her “confidence booster” internship taught her more skills and on-the-fly thinking than she had hoped. Coding was one of those skills.
“Though at the time Maitri had very little exposure to circuitry and programming, she confidently embraced the challenge presented to her and took initiative to research and teach herself the necessary skills and knowledge needed to complete the project,” Kyle Watson, a product engineer at Central, wrote in a nomination letter. “She also added additional features that were not originally required but made the test stand far more user friendly. This test stand has been vital in the development of our roll door product and is still in use today with Maitri’s original code.”
The following summer at Belden Inc. in Richmond, Indiana, Pandya combined her growing coding skills and a love for creating spaces for women in STEM. She also gained a love for the manufacturing process of crucial engineering tools.
She spearheaded plant-wide analyses on manufacturing floor processes to effectively increase operator efficiency while decreasing waste produced in product creation. It was another task she entered as a blank slate, but Pandya’s “contagious” enthusiasm for learning something new fueled her to improve the tape lubrication equipment used to cover the ductile wires in protective covering.
Her manufacturing task as operations intern was to figure out the best wrapping and cooling techniques for producing usable and efficient wires.
“Maitri treated everyone with respect and humbly took feedback and direction from the operators that run the equipment, the maintenance team and her peers and superiors,” wrote process engineer Andrew Wehrli in a nomination. “That level of teamwork, respect and humility usually doesn’t come naturally to young engineers working in an environment where most people don’t have a college degree.”
A legacy of community
Pandya’s next step is the GE Venova Edison Engineering Development Program, which introduces students to a variety of departments and positions through four six-month rotations within the energy company. She will move from Indiana to Georgia to complete her rotations — and her master’s in mechanical engineering — and Pandya looks forward to creating another new community.
“Maitri showed women in mechanical engineering that we are not alone and the importance of sharing our stories and making a difference for those that come after us,” wrote Ascher. “She has inspired me to be a better alumna and exemplifies what it means to be a Boilermaker.”
Applications for the Class of 2026 Purdue Engineering Fellows are open until June 30, 2025. Interested students graduating in May 2026 should reach out to faculty or staff to request a nomination and prepare a resume to submit. Selected Fellows are announced in September 2025.
