The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is laying plans for a project to attract more women into engineering. The brainchild of NAE's new president, William Wulf, it will feature conferences for students and a multimedia Web site.

The project, called "Celebration of Women in Engineering: Dispelling Myths, Profiling Excellence," is only in the seed stage, says NAE program officer Janet Hunziker. The $200,000 AT&T-funded project was to be launched at a 24 July meeting by a committee headed by physicist and NAE member E. Gail de Planque, a Potomac, Maryland-based consultant and former commissioner on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "I feel pretty strongly about the fact that we need to take an aggressive position" with regard to getting more women into engineering, says Wulf. Only 2% (42) of the NAE's 2000-odd members are women, although they now make up almost 8% of the work force and 20% of undergraduate enrollment in engineering.

As for myths that need dispelling, Wulf says: "Too often the image of the engineer is some guy wearing jeans and boots knocking down a mountain to build a road." In fact, he says, engineering means designing things with features of particular interest to women--things that are not only functional but healthy, easy-to-use, safe, and environmentally sound.

De Planque says the committee is drawing on the cumulative wisdom of other women-in-science efforts and hopes to come up with "something that really provides value added." Plans are to hold a series of conferences for female students interested in engineering that Wulf hopes will be "life-transforming" events.

The new Web site--to be produced by a computer company whose identity is as yet undisclosed--is also supposed to be life-transforming. "I've cried at a movie; I've never cried at a Web site," Wulf says he told the company. "Can you make me cry at this Web site?"