President: Jessica Riedl
Jessica attended her first SWE event as a high school senior visiting Iowa State University where she later earned her BS Mechanical Engineering and MS Agricultural Engineering. Since that time she has attended 10 state, regional, and national SWE conferences, serving as chair for the 2015 Iowa Conference for Women in Engineering. Jessica served as president, vice president, treasurer, and section representative for the Heart of Iowa SWE Section between 2007-2014. Since 2015 she has also served as membership chair, secretary, nominations chair, and now president for the Dubuque Area section.
Jessica enjoys networking with other SWE members, organizing technical tours, and participating in youth outreach activities.
Vice President: Kayla Evens
Though not a collegiate member of SWE, Kayla was very active in the University of Iowa’s student organization, Iowa Baja which participated in the SAE Collegiate Design Series and is excited to get back to the networking and growth that these professional organizations offer. Kayla graduated from the University of Iowa in 2019 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and began her career at John Deere as a hydraulics design engineer for Deere Excavators. Kayla now supports the continuous improvement efforts of hydraulics design for SSL/CTL machines.
Since coming to Dubuque, Kayla has picked up mountain biking and snowboarding that the area has to offer. She and her husband adopted a sweet dog from the Iowa City Animal Care and Adoption Center in February 2021 and have been trying to incorporate her in everything they do – so lots of time spent outdoors!
Treasurer: Danielle Allen
Since joining Dubuque Area SWE in July of 2017, Danielle has served as the Membership Chair. She graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in Systems Engineering. After graduation Danielle moved from Arizona to Dubuque starting as a Product Engineer in John Deere’s Engineering Development program. Since graduating from the program Danielle has had a permanent position as an electrical design engineer for Crawlers.
SWE has been a very important part of Danielle’s life and it was the WE15 national conference that allowed her the opportunity to pursue a career with John Deere. She is very excited about the positive influence she has seen SWE have on the community and can’t wait for more opportunities in the future. In her spare time, she enjoys taking classes at her favorite yoga and cycling studio, reading, traveling, cheering on the Minnesota Vikings and balancing her budget (exactly why she’s so excited to serve as the section’s treasurer!)
Secretary: Emma Lovett
Emma first joined SWE as a freshman while attending the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities with a major in chemical engineering. In her time with the UMN section she served on the Mentoring and University & Alumni Relations committees while capping off her experience serving as section President in FY2021. Following graduation, Emma moved to Dubuque to work for John Deere as a Materials Engineer.
In her free time, Emma enjoys working out and reading. She looks forward to networking with other SWE members and getting involved in the Dubuque SWE community over the next year.
