Opening Doors in STEM Earns Illinois Tech Adjunct Professor Teaching Award
Illinois Tech Adjunct Professor of Information Technology and Management Anita Debarlaben-Brown (CS ’90) has spent her teaching career breaking down barriers that hold back women and minority STEM students, and those efforts are being feted by the Society of Women Engineers with its Distinguished Engineering Educator Award.
The national accolade, which will be presented at WE26 in Boston on November 5–7, 2026, celebrates Debarlaben’s dedication, teaching philosophy, and career. The Distinguished Engineering Educator Award is presented annually to educators who have made significant contributions to the engineering profession as an educator, role model, and leader.
“Receiving this recognition from the Society of Women Engineers is a profound honor,” says Debarlaben. “My mission has always been to ensure that every student, regardless of their background, realizes they belong at the engineering table. Tech is stronger when it reflects the diversity of the world it serves.”
Debarlaben says women and minorities face several barriers while pursuing a STEM education, most notably a lack of role models, in addition to facing a variety of stereotypes and biases. She began a Women in STEM mentor program as a high school educator to show girls how they can succeed in STEM fields, as well as helping them to become mentors themselves by teaching computing science to other girls.
“My core philosophy is that some girls need to see one to be one, so I gave the members of my Women in STEM [group] a lot of opportunities to teach others,” she says. “It has inspired a generation of students to pursue careers in software development and computer science.”
Debarlaben began mentoring girls as a Girl Scout leader, which she continued for 15 years through her church in Lisle, Illinois. Enrollment grew from 12 to more than 150 during her leadership, and the group emphasized educational opportunities and field trips. She continues to help Girl Scouts earn their STEM patches, and members of the Women in STEM group lead the STEM classes.
She began her teaching career as a substitute teacher, and she enjoyed the experience so much that she went back to school to earn her teaching certificates after a 20-year career as a software engineer in the national defense and corporate sectors.
She says that she experienced many of the barriers that she is working to diminish throughout her career, which makes receiving this award particularly rewarding.
“Academia can be a hostile environment for minorities, where microaggressions and stereotypes are common,” she says. “I was often evaluated more critically by colleagues, administrators, and parents, requiring me to work twice as hard to prove my professional legitimacy.”
Debarlaben’s teaching style and philosophy has been previously recognized as she received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics/Computer Science and Science Teaching from former United States President Joe Biden in 2025 representing the state of Illinois.
