Date: June 23, 2026
Host: Amelia Dalton
Guests: Laura Mirkarimi (Adeia), Angelica Davila (Penguin Solutions), and Madison Ecklund (Texas Instruments)
Introduction: A Celebration of Innovation and Diversity
In celebration of International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) 2026, the Fish Fry podcast hosted its third annual special edition, gathering three of the most influential voices in the high-tech sector. Host Amelia Dalton moderated a compelling discussion with Laura Mirkarimi of Adeia, Angelica Davila of Penguin Solutions, and Madison Ecklund of Texas Instruments.
The episode served as a platform not only to honor the achievements of women in the industry but to dissect the rapid evolution of electronic engineering, the shifting landscape of semiconductor technology, and the imperative for sustainable, diverse engineering practices. As the industry faces the monumental demands of the AI era, these leaders offered a roadmap for navigating complexity, resource management, and professional growth.
Chronology of the Conversation: From Early Sparks to Industry Leadership
The Genesis of an Engineering Mindset
The dialogue began with a reflection on the "origin stories" of the three guests. Rather than a linear path, each guest described a unique trajectory fueled by curiosity.
Laura Mirkarimi traced her passion back to a seventh-grade chemistry class. "Mr. Palansky was explaining simple things like condensation… to me, it was like, for the first time, I was learning how the world around me operated," she recalled. For Mirkarimi, engineering is the art of balancing the simplicity of natural laws with the immense complexity of their applications.
Angelica Davila, meanwhile, emphasized that she was not a child who spent her days dismantling toasters. Her entry into engineering was driven by an insatiable need to ask questions. "I was always asking too many questions," she laughed. Her journey took her from an undeclared pre-med student at the University of Miami to a powerhouse in AI product marketing, having served at industry giants like Intel, Acer, and Dell.
Madison Ecklund provided a perspective on the generational shift within the industry. Raised by an electrical engineer father who labeled the discipline "the hardest one," her competitive spirit drove her to pursue the degree. Her path was cemented by an internship at Texas Instruments, where she discovered that she was, at her core, a problem solver—a trait that has kept her at the company for seven years.
Supporting Data: The Shifting Technological Landscape
The Death of Traditional Scaling and the Rise of Heterogeneous Integration
A core theme of the discussion was the seismic shift in semiconductor manufacturing. Mirkarimi noted that for decades, Moore’s Law—the observation that transistor counts on microchips double approximately every two years—was the industry’s North Star.
"When scaling began to slow, the industry pivoted," Mirkarimi explained. "Innovative people asked, ‘What else can we do?’" The answer was heterogeneous integration. By combining logic with memory, sensors, and processors in a single package, the industry has managed to bypass the physical limitations of shrinking transistors to drive computational performance.
Angelica Davila added historical context to this progress. Recalling a graduate school exam question regarding the 45 million transistors in the Intel Pentium 4, she contrasted that with today’s modern processors, which now boast tens of billions. "The progress enabled cloud computing, smartphones, autonomous systems, and now AI," she stated.
Official Perspectives: The Challenges of the AI Era
Resource Constraints and the Sustainability Mandate
As the industry leans heavily into AI, the conversation shifted toward the physical and environmental implications of this growth. Mirkarimi raised a critical, often overlooked point: the "insatiable demand" for power and cooling in the era of large-scale AI data centers.
"The semiconductor roadmap is increasingly focused on larger, faster, higher-performance systems," Mirkarimi noted. "But this creates demand for power and cooling—both of which are precious resources." She argued that the next phase of engineering innovation must move beyond pure performance metrics to include sustainability as a core design requirement.
This sentiment was echoed by the panel, who agreed that the most complex problems of our time will not be solved by individuals working in silos. Instead, they proposed that diverse, cross-disciplinary teams are essential to bridging the gap between technological advancement and resource responsibility.
Implications: The Future of the Engineering Industry
The Power of Perspective
The panel reached a consensus: the future of engineering relies on the breadth of human perspective. For Davila, the future starts with the youth. She advocated for universal access to STEM programs, robotics clubs, and AI education. "The earlier we expose students to engineering, the more diverse perspectives we bring into the profession," she said. "And better solutions come from more perspectives in the room."
Ecklund noted a personal observation of this trend in her own workplace. When she began her career, she was frequently the only woman in the room. Now, she sees a growing number of women across her organization. "That’s incredibly encouraging," she said, emphasizing that the industry is becoming a more inclusive space, which in turn fosters better, more creative engineering.
Professional Advice: Navigating a Career in Engineering
"There Isn’t Just One Path"
A significant portion of the episode was dedicated to advice for women entering the field. The collective wisdom offered by the guests centered on three core principles:
- Embrace Non-Linearity: Mirkarimi reminded listeners that if a chosen path doesn’t feel right, changing direction isn’t a failure—it’s a course correction. "There are many paths to the same destination," she noted.
- Ask the Right Questions: Ecklund, who admitted to being quiet in meetings during her early career, stressed that engineering success is not about knowing all the answers. "It’s about developing the confidence and persistence to ask the right questions."
- Network Authentically: Davila advised against viewing networking as a transactional chore. Instead, she urged young engineers to build authentic relationships and not be afraid to ask for or accept help. "None of us got here completely on our own," she said.
Conclusion: A Toast to Complexity and Essence
In a lighthearted "off-the-cuff" segment, the guests were asked what meal they would choose if they could dine anywhere in the world. Interestingly, all three gravitated toward the Italian coast—a symbolic choice that Mirkarimi connected back to the philosophy of engineering.
"I think of science the same way [as a perfect dish]," Mirkarimi reflected. "It’s complex, yet simple. It’s a beautiful marriage of complexity and essence."
As the podcast concluded, host Amelia Dalton reminded the audience that the industry is in a constant state of flux, driven by the curiosity of people like Mirkarimi, Davila, and Ecklund. For those interested in following the work of these guests or exploring more technical content, resources remain available through EEJournal and the respective corporate platforms of Adeia, Penguin Solutions, and Texas Instruments.
As the industry continues to evolve, the message from this year’s International Women in Engineering Day is clear: the future of engineering is not just about faster chips or more powerful AI—it is about the people who design them, the perspectives they bring, and the commitment to solving the world’s most challenging problems with both technical rigor and human-centric empathy.
For the engineering community, the year ahead promises to be as challenging as it is exciting. If the insights shared on this episode of Fish Fry are any indication, the industry is in capable, diverse, and deeply curious hands.
