Dartmouth College granted 54% of its 2016 undergraduate engineering degrees to women, making it the first national research university in the United States to award more bachelor’s degrees in engineering to women than men, the college says.

Krystyna Miles '16, left, and Shinri Kamei '16 created an ergonomic serving tray to reduce the occurrence of injuries and accidents by waiters carrying standard serving trays. Image credit: John Sherman. Engineering sciences is now the third most popular major at Dartmouth, after economics and government. A majority of students take at least one engineering course, frequently one involving hands-on engineering design, according to the college. Nationally, the proportion of women earning undergraduate degrees in engineering averages 19%, according to data from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).

“We’ve been able to attract more students, and especially women, by letting them use engineering to solve real-world challenges,” says Joseph Helble, dean of Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. “They quickly learn how their creativity and engineering skills can make a real difference.”

Women in the class of 2016 tackled a wide variety of engineering challenges, including:

· Gabriella Grangard and her team invented a new kind of cerebral shunt for treating hydrocephalus, a condition in which excessive fluid and pressure within the cranium can lead to chronic pain, severe disability and even death.

· Shinri Kamei and her team created an ergonomic serving tray to reduce the common occurrence of injuries and accidents experienced by waiters carrying standard serving trays.

· Tatjana Toeldte and her team developed a battery-powered, wall-mounted nicotine detector.

· Mary Grace Weiss and her team used human-centered design principles to develop an innovative exercise-promoting office chair.

· Autumn Chuang and her team developed a device to filter and transport water, useful for sub-Saharan environments.