Since 2016, the Sweet Briar College Engineering Program has sponsored the annual Lynchburg Area Engineering Week Banquet. Each year, engineers, high school and college students, educators, and members of the public from Lynchburg and the Shenandoah Valley gather with us to celebrate engineering in our region and enjoy an evening of networking.

This year’s featured speaker is Tara Vatcher, vice president of software development and architecture for Stellantis, a leading global automaker and provider of mobility solutions.

Our past featured speakers were: 

• 2020: Dr. Kevin Kochersberger, programmatic lead for the first African Drone and Data Academy (ADDA) in Malawi and professor at Virginia Tech
• 2019: Kip S. Thorne, theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate. One of the world’s leading experts on the astrophysical implications of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity
• 2018: Christine Darden, retired NASA aeronautical engineer, data analyst and mathematician featured in “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race”
• 2017: Antoine Picard, lead software engineer at Google
• 2016: Kathryn Thornton, former NASA astronaut, and Assoc. Dean at the University of Virginia