January 25, 2022; Los Angeles, CA – After a thorough vetting process to identify candidates with experience complementary to the existing Board of Directors, SHPE has filled two previously vacant seats.
Effective immediately, Lifetime members Melanie Weber of The Boeing Company and Will Davis of NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center are the newest members of the SHPE Board of Directors. Will is returning to the Board after serving as Secretary from 2019-2021, and Melanie is a first-time appointee.
Melanie LeAnne Weber is the Subsystem Lead for Crew and Cargo Accommodations and the Launch Pad Team Lead for the Boeing CST-100 Starliner. In 2019, she became the first woman and the first Hispanic to lead a Launch Pad Team on the day of launch of a spacecraft. Melanie was granted a U.S. patent for the crew’s seats on the Starliner and works to ensure safety of the astronauts during their missions earning her the NASA Astronauts’ Silver Snoopy Award. She was featured in an episode of the Science Channel’s Impossible Engineering describing Starliner’s landing airbag system and was integral in unveiling Boeing’s spacesuit on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Melanie is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and was recently recognized as an Outstanding Young Texas Ex. She takes an active role in the community to encourage students and adults to pursue fields related to STEM and is an active lifetime member of SHPE.
Will Davis is a double-degreed engineer from UTEP currently living in Houston where he serves as the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Program Manager with NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity (JSC-ODEO). In this role, he is responsible for advising JSC senior management on D&I initiatives and helping manage the center’s ten ERGs. Previously, he served for twelve years as an engineer with JSC’s Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate. He is a 2009 graduate of the NASA FIRST Program and holds a NASA Green Belt Certification in Lean Six Sigma. Service has always been at the heart of Will’s endeavors moving him to volunteer at the highest levels. From 2012-2018 Will served on the MAES Board of Directors as President and from 2019-2021, Will was elected to the SHPE National Board, having been a SHPE member since 2000. He is a lifetime member of MAES, SHPE, and the UTEP Alumni Association. Notably, he was the 2018 recipient of the Great Minds in STEM/HENAAC Santiago Rodriguez Diversity and Inclusion Award.
National Board Chair Miguel Alemañy said about the appointments, “We are thrilled to bring back Will to our Board. His experience and expertise, especially with human resources and DEI, makes him a critical player as we set and execute our new 5-year strategic plan. And I am equally excited to welcome Melanie to this role. She brings much needed passion along with fresh insight and perspective. She joins eleven other members who are serving their first term, meaning 75% of our current Board is new. We look forward to their fresh input and guidance as they shape SHPE’s future course.”
ABOUT SHPE
SHPE (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers) is a nonprofit organization serving and advancing Hispanics in STEM. With more than 13,000 student and professional members, SHPE’s mission is to change lives by empowering the Hispanic community to realize its fullest potential and to impact the world through STEM awareness, access, support, and development. To accomplish this, SHPE provides a variety of programming, services, resources, and events, including hosting the largest Hispanic STEM convention in the nation. For more information, visit http://shpe.org.