Marisa Chrysochoou is a Professor and Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Connecticut. She obtained her BS in Physics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, her MS in Environmental Engineering at Technische Universität Dresden in Germany and her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology. She was hired as an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut in 2007, promoted to Associate Professor in 2013, Full Professor in 2019 and was recently appointed as the first female Department Head in the School of Engineering. Dr. Chrysochoou serves as the Principal Investigator of the project “Beyond Accommodation: Leveraging Neurodiversity for Engineering Innovation.” Sponsored by the National Science Foundation Revolutionizing Engineering Departments program, this 5-year project aims at transforming educational practices and cultivating the potential of neurodivergent individuals to contribute to engineering breakthroughs.