Schauer (center) receiving the award, accompanied by Dean Sharon Walker (right).
Caroline Schauer, Margaret C. Burns Chair in Engineering and Interim Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement, is the recipient of the 2023 AWIS Elizabeth W. Bingham Award presented by the Philadelphia chapter of the Association for Women in Science “to a distinguished local scientist who has significantly influenced the advancement of women in science and has served women in science as a mentor and role model.”
Schauer has mentored several junior faculty and upper-division students. Many of the students she has mentored have received prestigious awards and fellowships, among them National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, and Goldwater and Fulbright Scholarships.
In addition to mentoring, Schauer is the founder and co-director of the Drexel Woman Faculty Association, a networking group of women faculty from across the University. In this role, Schauer organizes monthly programmatic meetings on topics such as mentoring, personal “board of trustees,” negotiation, and sexual harassment in academia, and hosts invited speakers and coffee get-togethers.
Schauer notes, “I have been privileged to come from a family of female and male scientists and engineers who served as excellent mentors and role models. That positive, and life changing, mentoring experience is not always common today; something I have been determined to change. Mentoring the next generation of scientists and engineering is at the core of who I am.”
Schauer’s long-standing commitment to mentoring and service has earned her numerous recognitions in addition to the Bingham Award. She was selected a 2022 Outstanding STAR Mentor and received the 2018 Drexel University Harold M. Myers Award for Distinguished Service, the 2016 Drexel Fellowships Office Faculty Mentor Award, and the 2012 Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award from the Drexel Graduate Student Association. In 2021 she was appointed Margaret C. Burns Chair in Engineering, which was established to support a faculty member who champions women, minorities, and members of the LGBTQ community.