Guatemalan Engineer Ascends From Rural Roots to Ph.D.

Although she is just now starting her career as a tech professional, Mayra Yucely Beb Caal has already overcome towering obstacles. The IEEE member sees her life as an example for other young people, demonstrating that they can succeed despite disadvantages they face due to their gender, ethnicity, language, or economic background.

Born in Coban, the capital of Alta Verapaz in northern Guatemala, she grew up in a community far removed from the world of technology. But she attributes her success to having been steeped in the region's cultural richness and her people's unshakable resilience. The daughter of a single mother who was a schoolteacher, Caal says she spent her early years living with her aunts while her mother worked in distant towns for weeks at a time to provide for the family. In her community-mostly descendants of the indigenous Maya-Kekchi people-technology was rarely discussed. Pursuing a degree meant studying to become a physician, the most prestigious occupation anyone there was aware of.

No one imagined that a girl from Coban would one day hold a doctorate in engineering or conduct cancer research in France.

On the path to her ambitious goals, Caal got a big assist from IEEE. She received a Gray scholarship, awarded by the IEEE Systems Council to students pursuing graduate studies in process control systems engineering, plant automation, or instrumentation measurement. The US $5,000 award supplemented other scholarships which helped her to study for her Ph.D.

Discovering robotics and mechatronics in high school

Caal was introduced to technology when, at age 14, she received a government scholarship to attend the Instituto Tecnico de Capacitacion y Productividad, a high school in Guatemala City. It was her first exposure to electronics, robotics, and mechatronics (an interdisciplinary field that combines mechanical engineering, electronics, computer science, and control systems)-subjects that weren't taught in her local school. Caal was fascinated by the ability to study the fields, though her family couldn't afford the tuition to the private universities where she could earn a degree. But that didn't dissuade her.

Pursuing a mechatronics career despite gender barriers

She applied for a scholarship from the Gutierrez Foundation, named for the founder of CMI, a Guatemala-based multinational company. The foundation's scholarship covers full tuition, fees, and the cost of books for the duration of a recipient's undergraduate studies.

In 2016 Caal earned a bachelor's degree in mechatronics engineering at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, also in Guatemala City. There were few women in her class.

The job market was unwelcoming, however, she says. Despite her credentials, employers often required five years of experience for entry-level positions, and they expressed a preference for male employees, she says. It took six months to land her first job as a mechanical maintenance supervisor near her hometown.

She held that job for six months before moving back to Guatemala City in search of better opportunities. She took a position as head of mechanical maintenance at Mayaprin, a company specializing in commercial printing services, but she wasn't satisfied with her career trajectory.

Earning an engineering education abroad

Caal decided to return to school in 2018 to pursue a master's degree in mechatronics and micromechatronics engineering. She received a scholarship from the Mundus Joint Master program, part of a European Commission-sponsored initiative that provides funding for education, training, and youth in sports. Because the Mundus scholarship requires recipients to study at several universities, she took classes at schools in Europe and Africa, including Ecole Nationale Superieure de Mecanique et des Microtechniques, Nile University, and Universidad de Oviedo. Her studies focused on mechatronics and microelectronics, and the courses were taught in French, English, and Spanish.

The multilingual challenge was immense, she says. She recently had learned English, and French was completely new to her. Yet she persevered, driven by her goal of working on technology that could serve humanity.

She received a master's degree from Universidad de Oviedo in 2020 and was accepted into a Ph.D. program at Universite de Bourgogne Franche-Comte, in Besancon, France. Her doctoral studies were mainly funded by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research (MESRI), with additional support from the Gray scholarship..

Her research led to a full-time job last year as an R&D engineer focused on mechatronics and robotics at HyprView in Caen, France. The startup, founded in 2021, develops software to assist with medical data analysis and boost the performance of imaging tools.

Caal says she is part of a team that uses AI and automated systems to improve cancer detection. Although she has held the position for less than a year, she says she already feels she is contributing to public health through applied technology.

IEEE support and STEM mentorship

Through much of Caal's journey, IEEE has played a critical role. As an undergraduate, she was vice president and then president of her university's IEEE student branch. Her first international conference experience came from attending IEEE Region 9 conferences, which she says opened her eyes to the world of research, publishing, and the global engineering community.

She organized outreach efforts to local schools, conducting simple experiments to encourage girls to consider STEM careers. Her efforts were in direct opposition to longstanding gender norms in Guatemala. Caal was also an active member of the IEEE student branch at FEMTO-ST /Universite de Bourgogne Franche-Comte.

Today, Caal continues to advise these student branches while advancing her career in France.

Language issues and gender bias remain obstacles: As a young woman leading male engineers, I have repeatedly had to prove my competence in ways my male peers haven't," she says. But the challenges have only strengthened her resolve, she adds.

Eventually, she says, she hopes to return to Guatemala to help build a stronger research infrastructure there with sufficient career opportunities for tech professionals in industry and academia. She says she also wants to ensure that children in even the most rural, poverty-stricken schools have access to food, electricity, and the Internet.

Her mission is clear: To use technology to serve a purpose, always aimed at improving lives."

I don't want to create technology just for the sake of it," she says. I want it to mean something-to help solve real problems in society, like the ones I faced early on."