Michelle Tovar-Mora, M.S., EIT ('13, '15)
Keeping the lights on for an entire city is something that is often taken for granted. Mrs. Tovar-Mora’s great passion for making a significant impact has led her to be part of the largest municipally-owned utility in the nation, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), doing her part to provide reliable and sustainable energy to the community. Her career in the utility industry began as a Staff Mechanical Engineer at ASWB Engineering; a woman-owned and operated consulting engineering firm. However, her passion for inspiring women engineers began in college, where she held multiple leadership roles in the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), the Society of Hispanic Engineers and Science Students (SHPE), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and the Engineering, Computer Science and Technology Student Council (ECST). These leadership experiences helped launch her engineering career with an internship at the City of Santa Ana. Her educational background includes a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). Her future educational and professional goals are to obtain a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and become a Licensed Professional Engineering in the state of California.
In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her son, planning vacations with her husband, and participating in STEM outreach for students. Michelle believes that “with dedication and self-motivation, anything is possible.”