Major: Chemical Engineering
Originally from North Tonawanda, NY
Currently lives near Chicago, IL
While at Clarkson, DiFrancesco was a member of the Society of Women Engineers (Vice President in 1975-76), the women’s basketball and volleyball teams, and Phalanx (Clarkson’s leadership honor society); she worked at Clarkson’s food service; and she was active in her church. She was a medical manufacturing quality expert with Fortune 100 and private companies. From her graduation through the late 1990s, she worked in engineering and management positions for a variety of companies around the U.S., including Procter and Gamble, Abbott Laboratories, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. In 1998, DiFrancesco founded DLD Quality Engineering, which provides independent quality systems engineering consulting. She is also an involved Clarkson alunma; among many other things, she serves as the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Counselor to Clarkson’s SWE chapter. DiFrancesco lives in the Chicago area with her Chicago family. She is also the proud aunt of seventeen nieces and nephews, two of whom are Clarkson alumni.
In this interview clip, DiFrancesco explains that her father was an engineer and she used to build things in his shop as a child, yet he resisted her decision to pursue biomedical engineering. She also discusses her decision to attend Clarkson because of the financial aid she received there.