The IEEE Frances B. Hugle Scholarship was established to honor the memory of Frances B. Hugle, her many significant engineering accomplishments, and to help provide the resources for female engineers to follow in her footsteps. The scholarship is presented to up to two female IEEE Student Members who have completed two years of undergraduate study in an engineering curriculum at an ABET-accredited university or college within the United States.
2019 Scholarship Recipient
Caitlyn Patton, IEEE Student Member
Caitlyn Patton is a senior at Mercer University studying Electrical Engineering. She is originally from Durham, North Carolina, where her interest in engineering was sparked by her involvement with Riverside High School’s Project Lead The Way (PLTW) engineering program. At Mercer University, she is enrolled in the School of Engineering’s 4+1 Integrated Master of Science Program where she will graduate in May 2020 with her Bachelor’s Degree and December 2020 with her Master’s Degree, both in Electrical Engineering. She is an Honors Engineering Scholar through Mercer’s Honors program, where she has worked on research projects with Dr. Ruiyun Fu on subjects in Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) as well as solar power. Caitlyn presented preliminary research results on WPT at the IEEE 9th International Symposium on Power Electronics for Distributed Generation Systems (PEDG 2018) in Charlotte, NC, in July 2018. Caitlyn has completed two internship rotations with Duke Energy’s Transmission Division in North Carolina. Her first rotation was within Protection and Controls in Raleigh, NC, while her second was with Technical Support in Wilmington, NC. She is an IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) scholar and is currently the secretary for the Mercer chapter of the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. She also works as the Head Layout Editor for her school newspaper. She has been the acting secretary for the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) chapter at Mercer University for 2019, and will be assuming the role of President for the SWE chapter beginning January 2020. Caitlyn loves to be involved with her SWE chapter because of the impact its outreach activities have within the local Macon, GA community. She hopes to inspire young girls to follow in her footsteps to become engineers in a world where engineering is at the forefront of technological progress.
The IEEE Women in Engineering committee takes pleasure in presenting Caitlyn Patton as the 2019 recipient of the Frances B. Hugle Scholarship, in recognition of her outstanding academic performance and passion for engineering.