Who We Are: Catherine Didion

Senior Program Officer National Academy of Engineering

Catherine DidionCatherine Didion is a Senior Program Officer at the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Her portfolio is the Diversity of the Engineering Workforce program with a charge to provide staff leadership to the NAE’s efforts to enhance the diversity of the engineering workforce at all levels including the diversity of those being prepared to enter the future workforce. In addition to her duties at NAE, in March of 2007 Didion became the Director of the Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine. This is a standing committee with a new mandate to work as a focal point on gender across the three National Academies.

Didion served as Executive Director for the Association for Women in Science
(AWIS) for fourteen years (1990 to 2004). During tenure AWIS was awarded the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring and she was the principle investigator for 17 government and foundation grants. Didion presented testimony before the United States Congress and U.S. federal agencies.

Didion is an internationally recognized leader and expert on issues of equity and gender in science and engineering. She has been an invited speaker on mentoring, networking, and women in science and engineering at over 200 conferences and has authored over fifty publications on women in science and engineering. She was the editor for Women in Science Column for the Journal of College Science Teaching from 1993-2002.

Didion has extensive experience on Capitol Hill including staff positions at the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, Office of Senator Robert Packwood (R-Oregon), the Senate Computer Center, and the Senate Press Gallery.

Didion’s honors and awards include AAAS Fellow (2005); AWIS Fellow (2001); Drucker Foundation Fellow (2000); Texaco Management Institute Fellow (1999); Secretary of the US Air Force Inaugural Environmental Civic Leaders Tour (1996); and Certificate of Commendation and Distinguished Service, Embassy of the United States of America (1989).

 

Officers

Staff

Our Founder

Board of Trustees

  • William Wulf, Ph.D., Former President, National Academy of Engineering, Board Chair
  • Bill Unger, Partner Emeritus, Mayfield Fund - Vice-Chair
  • Margaret Ashida, Director, Diversity and Workforce Programs - IBM Software Group
  • James Beck, CPA & CMA, Managing Director & CFO, Mayfield Fund - Treasurer & Vice President
  • Francine Berman, Professor, Dept of Computer Science and Engineering, UC San Diego and Fellow, ACM
  • Debi Coleman, Managing Partner, SmartForest Ventures
  • Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President, Research and Systems Engineering, Google
  • Penny Herscher, President & CEO, firstRain
  • Kathy Hill, Senior VP Ethernet and Wireless Systems Technology Group, Cisco Systems Inc.
  • Wayne Johnson, Vice President, University Relations, Hewlett-Packard
  • Maria Klawe, President, Harvey Mudd College
  • Richard Rashid, Senior VP and VP Research, Microsoft
  • Justin Rattner, Senior Fellow & CTO, Intel
  • Cheryl Shavers, Former Undersecretary of Technology, Clinton Administration, & CEO of Global Smarts, Inc.
  • Telle Whitney, President & CEO, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
  • Linda Bernardi, Emeritus (Term: 1996 -2006)
  • Greg Papadopoulos, Emeritus (Term: 1996 -2006)

Individual and Organizations

Board of Advisors