Engineering profession honors WRM Commissioner
Cara Cowan Watts, Will Rogers Memorial Commission member, receives the American society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers Robert E. Stewart Engineering-Humanities Award from Ronald Yoder, ASABE president, at an international meeting in Pittsburgh Pa.
Will Rogers Memorial Commissioner Cara Cowan Watts has been honored by The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. At the 2010 Annual International meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa., she received the Robert E. Stewart Engineering-Humanities Award. It honors outstanding contributions of agricultural engineering students to the advancement of the interaction of the profession and humanities.
A member of the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council, specifically representing Rogers County, Cowan Watts was recognized for her “outstanding efforts toward the integration of Cherokee culture with engineering research and outreach.”
Throughout her career in the private and public sector, she has displayed a commitment to the social and technological concerns of the Cherokee Nation, and to the well being of others. She has applied her engineering, communication, leadership, organizational, and interpersonal skills to improving the lives of those around her. She chose to write her Ph.D. dissertation research on developing numerical nutrient criteria to support rivers and streams designated Culturally Significant Waters of the Cherokee Nation.
One of 17 elected members of the Cherokee Tribal Council (2003-2011), whose primary function is to initiate and amend legislation that furthers the interests of about 300,000 Cherokee Nation Tribal citizens, Watts serves more than 13,000 constituents in District 7 of Rogers County. As a council member, she works actively for new and expanded educational programs within the Cherokee Nation supporting science, technology, engineering and mathematics for the K-12 programs.
As a national leader within the American Indian community, she has approached her engineering education as something to be integrated with and applied to the issues of her culture.
Appointed to the Will Rogers Memorial Commission in 2008, she was elected by peers to serve as Deputy Speaker of the Cherokee Tribal Council 2007-2011; elected vice president to the Executive Board of the National Congress of American Indians (2009-2011); was co-chair of the Cherokee Nation Executive and Finance committee, with oversight of an annual budget of approximately $450 million; was an Oklahoma State University Louis Stokes National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellow; and received a gubernatorial appointment to the Governors’ Interstate Indian Council as representative of the State of Oklahoma.
She serves on the advisory board of the Claremore Indian Hospital.
Watts’ PhD is in biosystems engineering from Oklahoma State University, where she also earned a BS in mechanical engineering and an MS in telecommunications management. A five-year member of ASABE, she is also a member of the American Water Resources Association, the Society of Women Engineers, and the Oklahoma chapter of the National American Indian Science and Engineering Society, of which she is a founding member. She is a member of two engineering honorary societies.
The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers is an international scientific and educational organization dedicated to the advancement of engineering applicable to agricultural, food, and biological systems. Its 9,000 members, from more then 100 countries, are consultants, managers, researchers, and others who have the training and experience to understand the interrelationships between technology and living systems.