Marjolein van der Meulen, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell, is featured in a new book, "Changing Our World: True Stories of Women Engineers," published by the Extraordinary Women Engineers Project. The book is intended to inspire and encourage young women to pursue careers in engineering and to address the long-standing underrepresentation of women in the engineering profession. It will be distributed primarily to school libraries and counseling centers.

In a section on bioengineering, the book describes van der Muelen's research on how bone mass develops during the teen years. Her research focuses on the human skeleton in the relatively new field of mechanobiology, which examines how mechanics influences biological systems. Van der Muelen also is an associate scientist with the Laboratory for Biomedical Mechanics and Materials at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, the orthopedic affiliate for Weill Cornell Medical College.

The book was launched at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 21 during Engineers Week, and is available in PDF format at http://www.conveyinc.com/ewep/.

The Extraordinary Women Engineers Project is a coalition of professional societies and educational institutions whose goal is "to inspire young women to enter the engineering field and to develop a new generation of role models for those in the field." The coalition plans to follow the new book with a television documentary, educational resources and training and national outreach programs.