Tapping America's Potential

Scientists & Engineers: Inventing America's Future

Business Roundtable Highlights Scientists and Engineers Who Make a Difference to U.S. Innovation Leadership

Ainissa G. Ramirez, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Yale University

After studying materials science and engineering at Brown University (Sc.B.) and Stanford University (Ph.D.), Dr. Ramirez worked as a technical staff member at Bell Laboratories. Currently, she is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Yale; advisor to both the Liberty Science Center (NJ) and to the Exploratorium (CA); and is the director of "Science Saturdays," an educational series showcasing science professions for children. Dr. Ramirez has formulated an advanced universal solder for electronics and optics, written more than 25 technical articles and holds six patents.

Scientists and engineers are America's innovators. Studies show that of all the factors that contribute to productivity growth and global economic competitiveness, the number of scientists and engineers in the workforce is the most significant.

Scientists and engineers drive innovation and technological change. They create the knowledge and develop the technologies that define modern life. A degree in science or engineering opens the door to many career paths. The jobs of the future will require creativity and technical understanding. Science and engineering deliver both.

Business Roundtable is a leader on national innovation policy, including initiatives to encourage more Americans to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The Roundtable was a founding member of Tapping America's Potential (TAP), a business-led campaign with the goal of doubling the number of graduates with STEM degrees by 2015.

Business Roundtable and TAP call upon Congress and the Administration to support American innovation and act this year to to:

Renew America's commitment to discovery by doubling the basic research budgets at the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Department of Energy's Office of Science, and the Department of Defense.

Improve student achievement in math and science through increased funding of proven programs and incentives for science and math teacher recruitment and professional development.

Welcome highly educated foreign professionals, particularly those holding advanced science, technology, engineering, or mathematics degrees, especially from U.S. universities, by reforming U.S. visa policies.

Make permanent a strengthened R&D Tax Credit to encourage continued private-sector innovation investment.

Business Roundtable supports America's scientists and engineers -- innovation leaders who are inventing America's future -- and calls on federal policymakers to do the same. For this and other profiles or to learn more about TAP, visit www.tap2015.org.

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Business Roundtable (www.businessroundtable.org) is an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with $4.5 trillion in annual revenues and more than 10 million employees. Member companies comprise nearly a third of the total value of the U.S. stock markets and represent over 40 percent of all corporate income taxes paid. Collectively, they returned $112 billion in dividends to shareholders and the economy in 2005. Roundtable companies give more than $7 billion a year in combined charitable contributions, representing nearly 60 percent of total corporate giving. They are technology innovation leaders, with $90 billion in annual research and development spending - nearly half of the total private R&D spending in the U.S.

Tapping America's Potential (TAP) is composed of 16 prominent business organizations that represent the largest and most innovative companies in America. They have set the goal of doubling the number of U.S. science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates with bachelor's degrees by 2015.

Click here for previous Scientists & Engineers profiles.