Pictured above (L-R): Rebecca Coker Thies, Melissa Moss, Sanaz Sadati, Golareh Jalilvand, Victoria Colón-LaBorde
According to the Society of Women Engineers, less than 1% of working engineers in the United States in 1950 were women. March is Women’s History Month, a time to celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of women, especially those who were pioneers in their field.
One of those individuals with a connection to the University of South Carolina and Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing (MCEC) was Rebecca Coker Thies.
Thies died on February 22 at the age of 98 and lived an exceptional life. She became a trailblazer in 1948 as the first woman to graduate from USC with an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering. Thies completed her master’s degree two years later, and upon graduating, she worked as a rocket scientist at Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama, paving a path for future generations of women in the field.
For part of the USC Alumni Association’s Oral History Project, Thies reflected on her time at the university.
“I originally wanted to attend USC because I wanted to study science and engineering, and they wouldn't let girls into Clemson,” Thies said. “My time at USC was memorable because of the fun parties and the delicious food in the women's cafeteria. I didn't have much time for clubs or organizations because I had a lot of studying and labs.
USC had an influence on my career because I was able to get a job, even though it was difficult for women to get hired as engineers back then. Now, my granddaughter is an engineer, and she didn't have any problem getting a job.”
The numbers have dramatically changed since Thies graduated from USC nearly 80 years ago. Of the 267 chemical engineering undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at the start of the 2025-2026 academic year, 41.9% are women. And according to the American Society for Engineering Education, 42.1% percent of women earned chemical engineering degrees in the United States in 2024.
Some of the women faculty of the Department of Chemical Engineering and an undergraduate student were asked about their perspectives of Thies as a trailblazer at USC as well as women working, teaching and studying in the field.
Melissa Moss was promoted to senior associate dean for academic affairs in January 2025. In 2021, she was selected as Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering, the first women to hold the position.
“Any challenges today are nothing compared to what she [Thies] endured,” Moss says. “It's amazing that she not only earned her degree but completed her master’s and went on to achieve impact as a rocket scientist. It takes people like her to set the trend to inspire young women.”
Moss hired three women faculty during her tenure as chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering and worked to recruit more female graduate students.
“Diversity in our college is growing and female students in the college are performing competitively, particularly with retention,” Moss says. “I think that is evidence that we are offering the right programs and creating a positive culture for women students.”
Chemical Engineering Assistant Professor Sanaz Sadati has been at the MCEC since 2019. In 2022, she earned a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for a five-year research project.
“Women who go beyond the overall expectation of the society norms at the time is always inspiring,” Sadati says. “Higher education at that time [1940s] was not easy for women, but she [Thies] looked beyond those boundaries and successfully navigated a trajectory for women going forward.”
Sadati also believes that it is more accessible than ever today for women to study chemical engineering.
“I believe [college] administrations provide for the whole community, regardless of gender,” she says. “They are supporting women and showing how they bring different perspectives and knowledge.”
Chemical Engineering Assistant Professor Golareh Jalilvand has taught and pursued research at the MCEC since 2022. She is also one of the team members of the college’s Carolina Institute for Battery Innovation.
“Even today, I see many girls in middle and high school who don’t know about having the opportunity to go into engineering,” Jalilvand says. “They perhaps have not been exposed to engineering or have a role model.”
Jalilvand also mentioned the important of continuing to encourage females to pursue chemical engineering careers and research for many reasons, including different personal qualities and perspectives.
“Men and women’s brains function the same way with doing all the math, chemistry and physics,” Jalilvand says. “But some of the personal qualities that women may bring to the table include thought processes, logic and situation handling. It’s important to have more of a presence because I think the lack of having an equal contribution of both genders makes infrastructure based on one side of logic and thought process.”
Chemical engineering senior Victoria Colón-LaBorde is an undergraduate research assistant and completed an internship last summer at the National Laboratory of the Rockies in Colorado. She is currently pursuing research in batteries and energy storage, and after graduating this May, she plans to remain at USC for graduate studies.
“I didn't know much about her [Thies], but it's really impressive because I imagine when she was studying chemical engineering here, she probably got a lot more pushback,” Colón-LaBorde says.
Both of her parents graduated from USC, including her mom, who studied biology and chemical engineering. And while a significant gap still exists between the percentage of men and women working in chemical engineering, Colón-LaBorde believes the numbers are improving for women as there has been a greater push to encourage girls to pursue STEM studies and careers.
“Women definitely don’t face the same challenges that existed 70 years ago and things have greatly improved,” Colón-LaBorde says. “But I think there’s a gap in leadership roles within chemical engineering, so I would love to break that trend.”