Women to know: Masha Dyachok

Masha Dyachok currently works as a mechanical engineer in Fort Worth, but has called Kidd Springs home for nearly four years since moving to the neighborhood for her first full time job.

Her day to day consists of designing buildings, using her skill set to help create the blueprints for the projects. This includes calculating the heating and cooling requirements for the space, selecting the air conditioning units for those requirements and working in 3D modeling to make sure they know how to build the project in real life.

She says starting out with her first professional role was a bit of a shift.

“The place that I started working at was a really cool place,” she says, “but in terms of having diversity, and I would say, (there were) a lot of really cool women who supported me, but it wasn’t the best fit in terms of workload and work style, and so that was kind of a learning curve for me to figure out, ‘OK, how can I work best, and what is it that I find to be exciting about engineering, and maybe what am I not getting from this role?’”

She began her new position as a data center mechanical engineer this year, which she says helps her tap into her creative side by working on buildings amidst the changes of the industry.

“I would say data center is a big one that’s really growing, and I think for me as a person who wants to see the world improve and want to have a hand in that,” she says, “I believe that working on data centers is really going to help us create tools that are more powerful and can help us do our jobs easier and do better work, and I also like believe that with working on data centers I have a direct input on making them more sustainable and more efficient, and that’s something that’s just super exciting to me.”

Although she has been working full time as an engineer for three and a half years, her start to engineering began in high school roughly eight years ago.

At 16 years old, she took her first engineering class after her mom and sister encouraged her to take advantage of the career and technical education programs available during high school.

“They knew engineers make good money, they were like, ‘Masha, try taking a class there at your high school,’ because it’s part of our curriculum, and so it could be like a really good way to dip my feet in the water there,” she says. “So I ended up taking an engineering class there, and it was like a lot of modeling, and it went swimmingly for me. Little did my mom and sister know, it wasn’t software engineering that they knew made a ton of money. It was more mechanical engineering, but since then, I was more hooked.”

Dyachok says that her engineering teacher in high school really supported and encouraged her passion for the subject.

“I think me being one of two or three (women) of 30 students in that class, and it was maybe  (why) I got even more special attention just being a woman because there was kind of a push that we want to make sure women succeed.”

Because of her experience, she decided to major in mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. The coursework was rigorous, but Dyachok says that her determination and community pushed her through to make her goals for college a reality.

“When I was in my sophomore year of college, I really wanted to do a study abroad program, but those opportunities are really limited for engineering students, and especially me, I was quite particular, and I really wanted to go to Spain,” she says. “So I had to fight, I would say, like tooth and nail to find a program that would accept me, make sure that the credits would be accepted for my university and transfer back, so that I could complete my degree on time, and then create that opportunity for me to actually go abroad, and I was able to be successful in that, and study engineering in Spain, which was a really incredible chance for me to do that.”

Outside of her engineering roles, Dyachok says she loves to have a side hustle and create small businesses. She teaches private swim lessons around Oak Cliff and recently earned her yoga teacher certification, teaching classes at Kidd Springs Park.

“I’ve been talking with my friend to start teaching classes at Elmwood Farm, and kind of creating that community aspect there,” she says. “I’ve had some yoga studios that I’ve been connected with in Oak Cliff as well, so I’m just really excited to see where those are going to take off and grow, and see how I can serve the community more.”