CAC students receive 'Women in Engineering Scholarship'

Karen Banda and Rebecca Olivera have been named recipients of the "Women in Engineering Scholarship" at Central Arizona College.

They both credit Armineh Noravian, professor of engineering at CAC, for their success, according to a press release from CAC.

Banda is from Casa Grande and began her time at CAC taking dual enrollment classes in high school. Following her graduation from CAC in December 2023, she transferred to Arizona State University to complete a bachelor’s degree in science in computer science. She anticipates graduating from ASU in 2026.

“I attended CAC because of the availability of the associate degree that had a computer science pathway as well as activities like the balloon class,” Banda stated in the release. “Remembering my first engineering course, “Introduction to Engineering,” I was the only girl on the roster. It's gotten better over the semesters, but I still think it's amazing to have this kind of scholarship available to us. Often, we can be discouraged by that ratio, feeling excluded, or feeling like you don't know as much, but it is important to know how much you can bring to the table in this field, not only from technical skills, but also just having a different perspective. Not knowing enough is not the problem, not knowing when to be curious and ask about stuff is.”

Olivera, who is from Phoenix, wasn’t sure if she wanted to pursue a college degree after high school. Following a summer math boot camp at CAC, she decided to officially enroll at the college.

“I ended up having a great time with my professors and peers,” she stated in the release.

She graduated from CAC in fall 2023 and transferred to ASU to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (Software Engineering). She plans to complete her degree in spring 2026.

“In an engineering project class with Dr. Noravian … I worked with my colleague Rebecca Luma on developing a task management application for two semesters,” Olivera stated in the release. “Our work involved integrating concepts from current/previous courses taken, as well as conducting additional research. As a result, we will have a fully functional application that enables users to easily add, delete and edit tasks by the end of spring 2024.”

CAC has campuses in Apache Junction, San Tan Valley, Coolidge, Winkleman and Maricopa.