Executive Board

Executive Board (FY21)

Allison Knouse - President

Allison Knouse is a Vulnerability Engineer at Sikorsky Aircraft, a Lockheed Martin Company. In this role, Allison is responsible for leading the vulnerability effort for one of the Army’s survivability technology development programs, as well as, for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft program. Allison has worked at Sikorsky Aircraft for 7 years, starting as an Airframe Design Engineer and transitioning to her current role in 2017. Allison holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Penn State University, and an MBA from Worcester Polytechnic University. Allison has been a SWE member since her collegiate days and was her schools Section President for FY13. After graduating and moving out to Connecticut in 2013, Allison quickly joined SWE CT. Allison has been involved in a number of outreach events, both through the SWE CT Section as well as through the Professional Development Network (PDN) Employee Resource Group at Sikorsky Aircraft. As the Programming and Events Chair for the PDN, Allison has had the privilege of working closely with the Sterling House Community Center in Stratford, as well as helping with many STEM related events at Sikorsky Aircraft, including Camp Sikorsky, Family Day, and National Manufacturing Day. Allison is also a member of the Lockheed Martin (LM) SWE Action Committee and has represented Sikorsky at four WE National Conferences, both as a session speaker and recruiter. Allison was the SWE CT Scholarship Committee Chair for FY20 and hopes to continue to grow her section involvement in future years.

Rochelle Shidler - Vice President

Rochelle Shidler completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Clarkson University, and a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership from Quinnipiac University. She began her professional career in 2012 as a Manufacturing Engineer on the Final Assembly line for Black Hawk helicopters at Sikorsky, A Lockheed Martin Company in Stratford, Connecticut. From there, Rochelle transitioned to become Sikorsky’s Engineering and Technology Enterprise Excellence Leader. In this role, she was responsible for the oversight of all continuous improvement initiatives for over 3,000 engineering employees. Rochelle is currently a Project Engineer-Technical Assistant within the Engineering Performance and Affordability organization. In addition to this role, Rochelle is a Sikorsky STEM Council representative and former Co-Chair for Sikorsky’s Professional Development Network (PDN) Employee Resource Group. Through PDN sponsorship, she helped design and build a 5k run obstacle for the Sterling House Community Center’s largest fundraiser to date. Rochelle is an active SWE member and held board positions for the SWE Connecticut (CT) professional section including Section Representative, Alternate Section Representative, and Vice

Leanna Coiro - Treasurer

Leanna Coiro received her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2010. After graduating, she went to work for Schlumberger Ltd. as a Wireline Field Engineer. In her 6 years at Schlumberger she worked all over the world including assignments in Canada, Norway and Equatorial Guinea. Leanna has been working for Eversource Gas for 4 years now and is currently a Project Engineer. In her current role she is responsible for designing and updating the gas distribution model to ensure proper gas flows and pressures to help provide uninterrupted gas service to customers in Connecticut. Her previous responsibilities in the company involved gas main design work, replacement program design and governmental reporting. She is also the Leak Asset Team lead at Eversource and is an active company representative of DPAC (Distribution Public Awareness Council). Leanna was asked to help as the Webmaster for SWE CT in FY19 and has been enjoying her involvement with SWE ever since!

Stephanie Gillespie - Secretary

Stephanie Gillespie is the Associate Dean for the Tagliatela College of Engineering at the University of New Haven. She received her PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Georgia Tech. During her time as a Lecturer, she specialized in teaching first year engineering and service-learning courses, especially considering the integration of makerspaces and entrepreneurship in the engineering curriculum. As a SWE member of over 10 years, she has served multiple leadership roles in collegiate sections (UMiami SWE President), professional sections (SWE-Phoenix Treasurer and Vice President), and at Society-level committees (Finance Committee Chair, Program Development Grants Committee Chair, and currently Women in Academia Chair). She enjoys sharing the value of SWE with both current members and those that she meets professionally, and is often found volunteering at STEM events in the local community. In her free time she enjoys training for triathlons and completing DIY projects around her condo.

Sarah Shanahan- Outreach Chair

Sarah Shanahan is an Application Sales Engineer at Messer Americas, an industrial gas company. She received her Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering with a Minor in Management from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. During her summers in university, she worked as a sales representative for Vector Marketing and personally sold over $30,000 in Cutco cutlery. In the summer of 2009, she ran her own branch office in Sherman, TX where she hired and trained her sales representatives to sell over $110,000 in kitchen cutlery. Sarah then worked for Schlumberger in Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania (including two months of training in Siberia) for five years as a fracturing field engineer, in operations and in technical sales. She has worked on both coasts with Messer Americas for the past four years. In her current role, Sarah merges her technical background and sales expertise with her passion with helping others solve problems. She is responsible for identifying growth opportunities in her region and helping her customers optimize their industrial gas usage in the chemistry, energy and environmental industries. She has been a SWE member for ten years, volunteering her time with both the Dallas and Golden Gate SWE sections with outreach events. She is looking forward to helping SWE CT coordinate STEM outreach events in the community.

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