Maya Kirkland, C'2017, will receive a Bachelor of Science in
Mathematics this month as part of the Atlanta Consortium Center Dual Degree Engineering Program at Spelman College. The Houston, Texas native is a member of the College's
Women In Engineering (WIE-STEM) program and continues to strive for success in her field.
Kirkland recently accepted a position with IBM and will be matriculating through their “Consulting by Degrees Program” as a strategy and business analytics public sector consultant.Throughout her time at Spelman, Kirkland has participated in programs such as: Alpha Lambda Delta, FRESH, SWEPT, RISE, and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
Other campus clubs Kirkland has participated in are the Math Club, Miss Spelman Advisory Board, National Society of Black Engineers, Spelman Senator/ Liaison, Sisters Keeping It Real Through Service (S.K.I.R.T.S), SGA Internal Affairs Coordinator, and WIE-STEM.
Kirkland has also been afforded the opportunity to intern with companies such as AT&T, RedBull North America and The Coca-Cola Company. She has also served as a Spelman research assistant.
Today, Kirkland is looking forward to the next chapter of her life and hopes to travel around the world, increase in her knowledge of business and consumer analytics, and eventually attend graduate school in the fall of 2019.
Through Her Eyes: The Benefits of Spelman's WIE-STEM Program
Through WIE-STEM, I gained an understanding of the structure of college courses, as well as insight into professors’ expectations. WIE-STEM also provided a platform to investigate my career interest. For an example, as a first-year student, I was interested in biomedical engineering. WIE-STEM gave me the opportunity to work with a graduate student in biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech. Our project objective was to construct an artificial heart valve out of unconventional materials that would continue to allow the heart to perform basic functions.
This experience increased my interest into biomedical engineering which led me to my next opportunity: conducting research in a biology lab here at Spelman the following summer. I am very appreciative of my experience during WIE-STEM. The program definitely was a building block in my academic progress at Spelman.