Diana Iracheta - Founder, Latina Engineer Blog

Diana Iracheta is the founder of Latina Engineer, a blog, instagram and YouTube account that focuses on empowering women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) and creating resources for engineering students.

She is a recent graduate from Northern Illinois University for Mechanical Engineering and currently works as a Manufacturing Engineer. Diana is a Mexican immigrant. She arrived in the United States when she was only 12 years old. At that time she did not know English and had to venture into a new world during her teenage years.

During this time, she encountered many stereotypes that tried to tell her that her future was somewhere else other than engineering. However, having  strong support from her family and the urge to prove them wrong, pushed her to excel in her classes and finish her degree. 

Once she began working as an engineer, she found herself being the only woman and the youngest engineer. There weren’t any Latina Engineers to look up to. It is an all-too common issue in the areas of STEM.  

She wanted to start sharing her experiences as a latina in engineering. She knew there weren’t that many, but she also had a unique trait. She spoke Spanish and 80% of the employees at her company were hispanic. She was able to be in rooms where there hadn’t been women before and make her voice heard. 

She wanted to start sharing her story in hopes to connect with other Latina engineers and in hope to inspire any young Latina that was interested in a career in STEM. She started off by sharing her journey through college as a minority.  

Diana also speaks about her challenges through engineering. Despite being as qualified as her male counterparts, there is still bias that women, and especially minority women, face in the fields of science and technology. It is a topic that Diana is passionate about changing the narrative on! 

Using her writing and social channels, Diana’s focus combines her experiences with educational content such as picking a career in STEM, finding scholarships, and doing internships. She recently expanded into YouTube where she focuses on portraying that anyone can do engineering. 

She hopes to help many students with her content. One of her goals is to start a scholarship so that she can further support women and Latinas in STEM. 

The world needs more women in STEM. To think of the potential break-throughs that have thus far not been experienced because a woman was kept from using her skills and knowledge potential simply because she is female, is heart-breaking and maddening.  

We applaud Diana for all that she is doing, and for her perseverance in chasing after her dreams. We hope, and sure, it will inspire other young women to follow their dreams in science and technology.  

Diana, thank you very much for sharing your story and for helping to empower women! Please give her blog and social channels a look and follow below: 

Blog 

Instagram  

YouTube