Kara Branch is the Founder and CEO of Black Girls Do Engineer Corporation a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in June 2019 headquartered in Houston, TX and has two other chapters located in Los Angeles, CA and New Orleans, LA. Black Girls Do Engineer is passionate about developing young women in all areas of STEM. Black Girls Do Engineer provides mentoring, personal growth regimens, STEM projects and activities, and guidance on career paths based on insight from professional women that are leaders in the STEM industry. Our organization goals are to provide access, awareness, and advocate for two million Black-American girls to pursue STEM careers by the year 2050.
Kara is an alumnus of The Prairie View A&M University and hold a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering (2015) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Executive MBA (2021). Black Girls Do Engineer was founded based on Kara’s oldest daughter expressing to Kara that she wanted to be a software engineer at the age of nine. Now Kara is on a mission to help her daughter and hundreds of girl ages 6 to 21 years old who look like her achieve their S.T.E.M career goals. Kara has always been the only black women in her roles and knows representation matters. Her STEM program challenges girls to be critical thinkers and encourages girls to choose STEM and they are. Her challenges are paying off. She took girls in her organization who had no STEM background to finalist in the NASAWear Challenge, where they beat out 70 plus teams around the nation.
Kara started her career going directly into boardrooms with clients with her calculator walking them through her grass roots design projects. She has design one of the first plants of its kind in the USA. In her 7-year career, she has managed 15 plus improvement projects starting at $1 million to multi-million dollars in the Oil & Gas industry and as a Project Manager in the Space Industry supporting NASA and currently works as a Engineering Manager for Intel. She has served as a Science and Engineering Lead and Diversity & Inclusion Region Chapter Leader for ERG groups in Corporate America. She also holds a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification. She was selected to participate in the National Black MBA Association Accelerator Program due to the impacts her STEM program has made.
Kara is a Award Winning Chemical Engineer. In 2022, she won the Mentor of the Year Award from Houston Innovation Award Gala, Grit- Executive Award from ALLY Energy, 2022 Women in the Fast Lane of S.T.E.M Role Model Awards from Greater Houston Women Chamber of Commerce, and Rising Star in Child Advocacy from Children at Risk. Black Girls Do Engineer was also awarded their own “Black Girls Do Engineer Day” in the City of Houston from the Mayor of Houston.