Kikelomo Ijagbemi
Who is your present employer?
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (CSA CSM), Center for Advanced Power System, and FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Tallahassee FL.

What is your title?
Doctoral candidate in electrical engineering.

What project are you working on?
Quench protection of superconducting magnets. Specifically, I have designed and built the power electronics hardware to drive the high frequency power pulses to quench large superconducting magnets safely without any damage.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?
Being an electrical engineer, I focused on tackling the challenge of designing, building and testing a power electronics system that is at the heart of the Frequency Loss Induced Quench (FLIQ) system. I have tested the system on high temperature superconducting magnets. The focus was on designing a system that can generate AC current with remote triggering, self-oscillation and current feedback capabilities. I studied the sensitivity of various design parameters of the FLIQ system.

The challenge is to combine the physics of superconductors, electrical engineering of power electronics, and cryogenic aspects of superconducting magnets. I had to fabricate the components in house.

What advances for women would you like to see in the fields of cryogenics and superconductivity?
I would like to see mentoring opportunities to learn the skills needed to succeed in the professional world. I’d also like to see women advancing to leadership roles and serving as role models.

What would be the best approach to getting more women into our field?
Concerted efforts to support women in engineering disciplines, professional mentor networks in the subfields of engineering, support and networking opportunities and establishing the support groups are all valuable ways of encouraging women to join our field.

Ana Perez
Who is your present employer?
I work at Demaco Holland B.V. (CSA CSM)

What is your title?
I have been working as project engineer in the helium and hydrogen systems department at Demaco for five years.

What projects are you working on now?
I am currently working on a project for the European Spallation Source in Sweden. Demaco’s scope of supply includes the design, manufacturing and installation of part of the cryogenic system for the Target Moderator Cryoplant System. The project includes transfer lines and one valve box for liquid hydrogen. My role in this project is to coordinate engineering activities and perform analyses.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?
My biggest accomplishment is my participation in the LCLS-II Cryogenic Distribution System projects, especially the feed caps project for Fermilab (CSA CSM). This project was challenging for me not only because it was my very first project at Demaco (and in cryogenics), but also because of the sophisticated requirements of such equipment. This required dedicated analyses under challenging timelines, which we eventually met. It was largely made possible thanks to a strong commitment from the whole team.

What advances for women would you like to see in the fields of cryogenics and superconductivity?
I would like to see more women in decision-making and leadership positions. However, this change should not only be geared towards women. Rather, both men and women should be involved in this transition, as it requires a change in mindset for everyone. By doing this, we will achieve a more balanced view on things, which will benefit all of us.

What would be the best approach to getting more women into our field?
Currently women make up a small percentage of employees in cryogenics. Because of this, we are surprised when women actually choose to go into the field which leads to a bias many women (and society at large) hold towards cryogenics (and engineering in general) as a male job. I think that changing this perception, rather than providing special opportunities and women’s quota, is what is really needed to make more women choose this beautiful profession.

Irina Pravdina
Who is your present employer?
Demaco Holland B.V.

What is your title?
I’ve worked at Demaco as a project engineer for more than three years. Before Demaco, I worked in a Russian cryogenic company as a project engineer for nine years.

What projects are you working on now?
I am working on a project for the European Spallation Source. This project includes the design, manufacture and installation of the hydrogen transfer line and valve box for the Target Moderator Cryoplant System.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?
The biggest accomplishment for me was the project we did for Jefferson Laboratory. For this project, we designed, manufactured and installed multiple He transfer lines and two valve boxes. For me, it was my first big project after my relocation to The Netherlands and also my first project with helium. It was a unique experience and perfect team playing for me! I really appreciate that experience.

What advances for women would you like to see in the fields of cryogenics and superconductivity?
I would like to see more women in high-level leadership roles because we bring not only technical expertise but also diversity and different ideas on how problems could be solved.

What would be the best approach to getting more women into our field?
Personally, I think that the best approach to getting more women into our field would be providing flexible working hours. Because some of us are not only engineers but also mothers who need to care about kids and family.

Kristie Vice
Who is your present employer?
Chart Inc. (CSA CSM)

What is your title?
Tech and field service manager

What projects are you working on now?
Growth in the aftermarket services: preventative maintenance programs, installation services and field repairs; as well as expanding the knowledge and training services of our tech service team so we can best meet the needs of all our customers.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?
I am really proud of how my team handled 2020. When COVID-19 hit, it basically shut the majority of the team down because of the travel restrictions and constant unknowns. We were told to expect a less-than-stellar year and that we would probably not come close to our annual operations plan (AOP). While Q1 was slow, we learned to adapt by Q2 by implementing safety protocols that not only protected the team, but also protected our customers. The year ended without any COVID-related incidents and we had a record year just shy of our AOP. None of this would have been possible without the hard work and long hours from each and every person on my team.

What advances for women would you like to see in the fields of cryogenics and superconductivity?
I would like to see more women carrying hands-on roles—not just administrative, project management or HR. It can be hard as a female engineer in any industry, but from my experience, the more you know and the more you are willing to learn, the easier it is to squash the preconceived notion that women don’t belong in the field. More and more women are breaking the barrier, but I do feel like the barrier still exists.

What would be the best approach to getting more women into our field?
Truth be told, I am not sure. When I was in school, I had no idea the depth that cryogenics held in the economy. Maybe I am not the only one—maybe a good starting point would be in our education system as early as middle school through college.

Danlu Zhang
Who is your present employer?
The Ohio State University.

What is your title?
Graduate research associate, a senior PhD student graduating this year.

What projects are you working on now?
Currently, I have been working on the AC loss computation for superconducting coil windings and finite element method simulations of thermal and electromagnetic properties related to conduction-cooled, cryogenic systems.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?
I am proud that I was able to deliver good results in a timely manner on a research project related to a conduction-cooled, whole-body, MgB 2 MRI superconducting coil. The project was very expensive, complicated and new to me a few years back. I worked together with engineers, scientists, graduate researchers and management members from two other institutions. The project required a great deal of communication, planning, theory/test discussion and changes of plan. The challenging part was that when I first started this project, I had no knowledge on large-scale, conduction-cooled systems as well as superconducting magnets. Both the professional words and the fundamental theories were completely new. Yet the project required swift actions. Luckily, by working with the engineers from a local company with which we collaborated and talking to my advisor and previous coworkers, I was able to speed up the learning process. Also, browsing online stores that sell electronic components, mechanical parts and YouTube® helped me understand the basic terminology and the working principles about the tools and devices that I had never used. Finally, I learned some good experiment techniques by learning on-site with the engineers, including learning from the “embarrassing failure moments.” We, as a big team, published a few papers on this exciting work and delivered satisfactory results!

What advances for women would you like to see in the fields of cryogenics and superconductivity?
I have only seen a few women working in the superconductivity field at multiple international conferences all these years. I would like to see more women teaching superconductivity and/or cryogenics as professors. I also would be happy to see more women entrepreneurs make good use of cryogenics and/or superconductivity for the human race and our future.

What would be the best approach to getting more women into our field?
I think it should start with schools. People form an idea of what they want to be from an early age. I think people in our field can try to reach out to elementary schools and give voluntary science classes or tours to their labs so that kids can get the chance to know this field and get excited about it. I have volunteered to perform superconductivity experiments in a local elementary school. I still remember the kids’ excited eyes and their loud “Wows” when they saw the liquid nitrogen getting things so cold, so fast and the superconducting magnetics being levitated. The best was how some girls said they wanted to be “like me”—to be a scientist—one day! ■