Engineering alumni on "Survivor"

The Guardian (Oct. 13) -- Nuclear engineer J’Tia Taylor, who competed for the $1 million prize on reality show Survivor as a member of the Brains tribe, says part of reason more women don’t opt for an engineering career might be that it doesn’t seem like the most obvious way to help others. “A lot of times, women want to help,” she says. “They have the math or science background, but go into medicine. I tell them that they can help – be a biomedical engineer and design hearts. Design a solution.” Taylor recently became the first African-American woman to defend her PhD dissertation in the NPRE department at Illinois, and now works at Argonne National Laboratory.