Ana Lazarin of the College of Engineering has spent the last five years helping increase the diversity of the school where she was once a student.

Her hard work led to her winning the Global Engineering Dean’s Council Airbus Diversity Award, awarded by the GEDC and European aircraft manufacturer Airbus. Lazarin received the award on Oct. 21 at the Art Institute of Chicago during the GEDC annual conference.

“The award is to recognize individuals who have made an effort to increase diversity within engineering programs,” Lazarin said. “I know they had people from 12 different countries that were nominated and there were several applications. It’s a great honor to be recognized and receive the award.”

She was nominated by Interim Dean of Engineering Vish Prasad and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Lawrence Whitman.

With the award, Lazarin said, comes a prize of $10,000 that is applied toward the engineering program established by Lazarin to increase diversity within the College of Engineering.

Back in 2008, while still an engineering student, Lazarin started working part-time at the college. She said that at the time, there weren’t any efforts in place to increase diversity. The previous dean of the college then created an effort to recruit underrepresented students, including women, Hispanics, African and Native Americans and others.

The first program Lazarin helped start is called Changing Faces. Lazarin invites students from local schools and community groups to visit the College of Engineering.

“We do some lab tours, we do some hands-on activities,” Lazarin said. “We talk about what engineers do in all the different fields of engineering and all the different careers you can have within engineering.”

The College of Engineering also has summer camp programs students can participate in. Lazarin said about 50 percent of the students who attend the summer camp are from underrepresented groups, so the college does all it can to help those students.

A third program to increase diversity is the Bridge for Engineering and Engineering Technology Students program. Lazarin said the college works primarily with underrepresented students with this program as well. She described it as a more retention-based program.

“We try to work with them right before school starts to help the transition from high school or community college to Wichita State and to kinda brush up on their math skills since we have a lot of students who struggle in Calculus I and the reason why is they forgot their basic math skills,” she said.

Lazarin said the college has other programs designed to increase diversity in engineering students.

“We go to classrooms, we go to community events, we go to groups,” Lazarin said. “We do so many activities all year round.”

Lazarin’s involvement in increased diversity in WSU’s College of Engineering, which has increased by 91 percent over the last five years, led to her winning of the award. Nominations were submitted in the spring and from all the nominations received, a Top 10 finalist list was created. From there, the top three finalists were selected and invited to Chicago for the annual convention, where Lazarin was announced the winner.

“I was shocked,” Lazarin said. “I know the other finalists have a lot of credentials and have been in the field longer than I’ve been alive. They come from great schools also. I didn’t think that I would be the one. I was definitely shocked. I was humbled and honored that they had chosen me for the award.”