Celebrating Black Engineers: Monique Whitfield

By Haleema Shah

When Monique Whitfield was first encouraged to consider an engineering career in high school, she was skeptical. She grew up near the Mars chocolate facility in New Jersey, where her mother also worked, and most of the engineers she knew of were manipulating food color and formulas in a factory. She wanted to follow a different path.

But when her mother told her to look at civil engineering more closely, she realized she’d have the chance to work on something she’d been interested in since childhood—buildings. Whitfield was always fascinated by how structures came together, whether it was a wonder of the world like the Taj Mahal, a commercial building with curved glass, or a house flipped on HGTV.

“I really liked the design process and watching things just be lines on paper and wood planks,” she said. “And then you blink and it turns into this massive building that people can live in and use every day. I wanted to be part of that process.”

Now in her senior year at the University of Maryland (UMD), Whitfield hopes to work on major buildings that serve the public like schools, hospitals, and airports. She’s held three internships while studying at UMD and said her experience with the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company was particularly memorable.

As an intern, she supported the development of an apartment complex that also served as a commercial and office space by ensuring contractors were staying on schedule and conducting quality control checks. But it wasn’t just the work at the company that left a mark on her, it was her peers.

“Whiting-Turner is a very big company so they have a lot of interns every year. And there were a lot of Black interns within my cohort. They were from all over the East Coast,” she said. “It was like we instantly clicked and we’d known each other for a long time. We would do things outside of work. We would always hang out, we would go to different restaurants.”

Today, Whitfield is president of UMD’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers. The organization provides Black STEM students with everything from networking opportunities to board game nights to let loose.

“In the engineering department, there's a lot of students who don't look like us. And of course, that's a good thing because you're interacting with people who are different from you,” she said, noting that the campus’s diversity was what drew her to it in the first place. “But sometimes it's just nice to be able to let your guard down and be in a space with people who relate to your struggles and are in your major.”

As Whitfield winds down her academic career and prepares for a professional one, she shared advice for incoming Black students who are just starting in the School of Engineering.

“Don't sell yourself short and don't let other people label you or put you in a box,” she said. “Just because you're the only one in the room doesn't mean you're any less qualified to be there or less deserving than anyone else.”

Published February 26, 2025