MinerAlert
MinerAlert
February 2026
By Sandra Ramirez ’08, ’21
If you had asked Kitty Pearsall ’71 what passion she planned to pursue as she prepared to graduate from high school and enter college, her answer likely would not have been metallurgical engineering.
Pearsall comes from a family of educators. Her mother, father, and two of her three sisters all earned bachelor’s degrees in education from The JAV名女优馆 of Texas at El Paso. Her career, however, took a serendipitous path that led to a 41-year career at IBM, 12 issued patents and 22 publications culminating in her retirement as an IBM Distinguished Engineer, one of the company’s most prestigious honors. Recipients are often regarded within IBM as the “rock stars” of the tech world.
Pearsall was always certain she would attend college, a path her mother insisted on for Pearsall and her sisters.
“I’m very proud that my mother always told us, ‘You can’t always depend on a man. You have to make sure you’re taken care of,’” Pearsall recalled.
The challenge, however, was finding a way to pay for it. At the time, Pearsall’s father, brother, and sister were all enrolled at UTEP at the same time. Upon her high school graduation, she would become the fourth tuition bill in the family. Pearsall knew she would have to be creative to make paying for college possible, and she was determined to do so.
She met with her high school counselor, who told her it was late in the school year and that most scholarships had already been awarded— all except one: a scholarship and grant from the Woman’s Auxiliary to the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers Inc. at UTEP.
“My family, they were all math majors, so I did very well in math,” Pearsall said. “That meant I fit right into the mining and metallurgical program.”
At the time, Pearsall recalled being one of only two women in her cohort. She joined the UTEP Women of Mines in 1971, the year she graduated from UTEP, and she began her career at IBM in 1972.
While at IBM, Pearsall was invited to join the IBM Academy of Technology, a highly selective program requiring nomination and approval from peers and colleagues. During this phase of her career, her work focused on what was known as “anti-smoke,” involving fire-sensitive equipment and fire-related issues in technologies such as laptops and desktop computers.
Pearsall also served as a consultant for IBM and spent a year in China working with Huawei to develop materials processes for electronic components used in its products.
For about the last 15 years leading up to her retirement, she worked in IBM’s integrated supply chain and devoted significant time to mentoring other women engineers. Throughout her career, she earned several prestigious awards, but the one she is most proud of is the Fran E. Allen IBM Women in Technology Mentoring Award. She was surprised with the honor at a conference in 2006.
“I was walking on cloud nine. I had tears in my eyes. It’s not something I expected to get,” Pearsall said. “This is an IBM Women in Technology award. That’s why it meant so much, because one or more of my mentees wanted it. It just meant everything.”
Pearsall retired from IBM in 2013 and began volunteering with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a nonprofit organization with more than 400,000 members. She was inducted as an IEEE Fellow as part of the Class of 2026.
After such a successful career, Pearsall remains deeply grateful for her time at UTEP.
“UTEP meant so much to my mother,” Pearsall said. “I’ve always felt connected to UTEP because they helped me work. They helped me go to school.”