Jill S. Tietjen, P.E.
entered the University of Virginia in the Fall of 1972 (the third year that women were admitted as undergraduatesunder court order) intending to be a mathematics major. But midway through her first semester, she found engineering and made all of the arrangements necessary to transfer. In 1976, she graduated with a B.S. in Applied Mathematics (minor in Electrical Engineering) (Tau Beta Pi, Virginia Alpha) and went to work in the electric utility industry.
Galvanized by the fact that no one, not even her Ph.D. engineer father, had encouraged her to pursue an engineering education and that only after her graduation did she discover that her degree was not ABET-accredited, she joined the Society of Women Engineers and for over 35 years has worked to encourage young women to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers. In 1982, she became licensed as a professional engineer in Colorado.
Tietjen starting working jigsaw puzzles at age two and has always loved to solve problems. She derives tremendous satisfaction seeing the result of her workthe electricity product that is so reliable that most Americans just take its provision for granted. Flying at night and seeing the lights below, she knows that she had a hand in this infrastructure miracle. An expert witness, she works to plan new power plants.
Her efforts to nominate women for awards began in SWE and have progressed to her acknowledgement as one of the top nominators of women in the country. Her nominees have received the National Medal of Technology and the Kate Gleason Medal; they have been inducted into the National Womens Hall and Fame and state Halls including Colorado, Maryland and Delaware; and have received university and professional society recognition. Tietjen believes that it is imperative to nominate women for awardsfor the role modeling and knowledge of womens accomplishments that it provides for the youth of our country.
Tietjen received her MBA from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She has been the recipient of many awards including the Distinguished Service Award from SWE (of which she has been named a Fellow), the Distinguished Alumna Award from the University of Virginia, and she has been inducted into the Colorado Womens Hall of Fame. Tietjen sits on the boards of Georgia Transmission Corporation and Merrick & Companyof which she is Vice Chair. Her publications include the bestselling and award-winning book Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America for which she received the Daughters of the American Revolution History Award Medal.
She is delighted to be collaborating with her sister, Laura Privalle.
Laura Privalle
received her B. S. in biochemistry from Virginia Tech. Since Jill went to UVA and our parents insisted their four kids stay in-state, Virginia Tech was the obvious choice. During freshman orientation, her father (liberated by Jills choices) suggested that she not settle for a Masters degree but consider getting a Ph.D. Of course, he would have preferred that she select engineering as her field of study and even on the day she received her diploma, he asked when she was going to switch to chemical engineering! Laura received a M.S. in botany from Virginia Tech where her thesis work was on cellulases from Achlya bisexualis , a Phycomycete. She then entered the University of Wisconsin where she received her Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1983. Her major professor was Dr. Robert H. Burris and her dissertation was on nitrogen fixation in Anabaena 7120, a cyanobacterium. After a brief post-doctoral fellow position at Duke University working on spinach nitrite reductase, she joined Ciba-Geigy in 1984 as a post-doctoral fellow working on the control of ethylene biosynthesis and became permanent in 1986. Projects at Ciba-Geigy included herbicide detoxification, nitrogen utilization and insect control. In 1992, she joined Regulatory and Government Affairs, tasked to build the Regulatory Science group and was deeply involved in the safety assessment of Bt 176 maize, the first Bt maize product to receive regulatory approval. In 2003, Laura joined BASF to build their regulatory science group where she stayed until 2013 when she joined Bayer as the Global Head, Regulatory Field Studies.
Making the transition from academic research to more applied work and then finally to Regulatory Science allowed Laura to indulge in her passion for the acceptance of biotechnology as a critical component of sustainable agriculture. All her siblings (as well as her kids and nephews) attended Nature Camp for two weeks every summer from the time they had finished 5th grade until after 10th or 11th grades. This was a camp sponsored by the Virginia Garden Clubs with conservation as its theme. There the conservation pledge was recited daily (I give my pledge as an American to save and faithfully defend from waste the natural resources of my country ). Camp consisted of classes outside on geology, limnology, botany, herpetology (the favorite of boys), ornithology, astronomy, entomology, and more. This was the highlight of every year and fueled her desire to become a plant scientist and impacted many of her ensuing career decisions. It also helped that her mother was heavy into recycling long before it became common practice (1960s1970s). Understanding plant biochemistry and being able to relate it and its value to her family certainly pushed her towards a career in biotechnology. Of course, timing is everything. She became employable just at the time when agricultural biotechnology was taking off.
During her 25 years in the Agricultural Biotechnology Regulatory Science area, Laura has participated on many intra-industry organizations as well as global bodies tasked with ensuring the safety of these products. This has led to interactions with regulators from around the world at workshops designed to gather the best scientific minds to consider the most appropriate way to ensure the safety of our food supply. She has gotten to see first-hand how countries interact to make decisions on the global food supply by sitting in on a Codex Alimentarius Commission Ad Hoc Committee on Allergenicity meeting, She has participated in Scientific Advisory Panel Meetings of the US EPA and has attended workshops at the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), etc. She has participated in workshops on biotechnology regulations in Japan, The Philippines, Korea, China, India, Argentina and Brazil. She has about 50 publications and 4 patents.
