President
Meredith A. Miller
Meredith Miller has been the President of the South Ohio section of the Society of Women Engineers since 2021. She is a Patent Attorney at Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP, with her practice focusing on patent procurement and portfolio development for inventions relating to biotechnology, chemical engineering, and mechanical devices.
Meredith received a J.D. from Fordham University, an M.S. in Biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.S. in Biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University. Prior to practicing law, Meredith was a structural biology researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, specializing in protein x-ray crystallography, electron microscopy, and enzyme kinetics. Through this research, she has been published in Nature and Cell Reports.
Meredith often presents about patent law and inventions to students and professionals, including presentations at SWE conferences. In her free time, Meredith enjoys playing in a variety of recreational sports leagues, cooking, dancing, and doing trivia.
Secretary
Kara Combs
Kara Combs the Secretary of the South Ohio SWE section. She works as an associate computer engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory and is pursuing her Ph.D. in operations research at the Air Force Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on military applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Kara received her M.S. in industrial and human factors engineering and B.S. in industrial and systems engineering from Wright State University. Kara initially participated in the SWE chapter at Wright State but recently became involved with the South Ohio section. In her free time, Kara enjoys volunteering in her local community and for STEM outreach events.
Treasurer
Dr. Julie Skipper
Julie Skipper received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering in 1991 and her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences (Medical Physics and Engineering track) in 2003, both from Wright State University. She is a currently Research Faculty member in the Department of Engineering Physics at the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson AFB and is also the founder of Skipper Consulting. Her research focuses radiation detection and measurement, positron spectroscopy, and novel materials for quantum applications. She has authored over 30 scientific publications, holds two patents, and has received over $7M of sponsored research funding. With a passion for teaching and mentorship, Dr. Skipper co-led an Air Force Research Laboratory STEM entrepreneurial internship program and has been an active volunteer with FIRST Robotics for the past twelve years.
She first joined SWE as a student over thirty years ago, has subsequently served as the Faculty Advisor for the Wright State Student Chapter of SWE, and is excited about supporting the South Ohio SWE chapter.
