Meredith Gibson is on a mission to change the world. In order to do this, Gibson is focusing on youth.

For her efforts, Gibson, senior in chemical engineering, will join the likes of Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi to speak at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington, D.C. that takes place Monday through Wednesday. Gibson was one of two college women from the National Math and Science Young Leaders Program invited to the summit and will be the only college-aged guest speaker.

“As a delegate for the most powerful women summit I will be speaking not only about my own experiences in the young leaders program as a mentee and having been mentored by a woman in the field of math and science, but also how to give back, and the fact that now I’m focusing on mentoring younger girls to get them interested in math and science,” Gibson said.

Last February, Gibson received an e-mail from the director of the engineering leadership program asking if she would like to be involved in a program called the Young Leaders Program through the National Math and Science Initiative.

“I gladly accepted that offer, and I was a part of the program all last semester and through the summer,” Gibson said.

The program pairs young women studying in the STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math — with mentors in industry, and Gibson was paired with a mentor who worked as an executive at Archer Daniels Midland in Cedar Rapids.

“As a part of that program this summer I went to New York City for a conference,” Gibson said. “I met an executive at ExxonMobil who was really influential and I just gained a lot of wisdom from her, and she really enjoyed speaking to me and ExxonMobil invited me to be a guest delegate for this conference.”

Gibson is involved on campus in a number of organizations through the College of Engineering. Last year she was one of the co-chairpersons for the Engineers Ball and a member of the executive committee for E-Week. Gibson was also a general co-chairwoman for Minds of Tomorrow.

“I think that a lot of my leadership in the past year or so has really prepared me well to attend this conference and be a part of the summit,” Gibson said.

The Young Leaders Program has a problem, though. Many of the older upper-management members are planning to retire in the next couple years, and there aren’t enough people currently studying in the STEM fields to replace them.

“I think that it is definitely important that not only [women executives and women working the field], but also that myself and my peers as college students look toward the future and start mentoring and talking to younger girls about interests in math and science,” Gibson said.

The National Science Initiative is funded in part by Fortune and ExxonMobil and other large corporations to try to get female students more interested and involved in the STEM fields.

“They promote a number of programs including the Young Leaders Program to gain insight into students studying math and science,” Gibson said.

Gibson has had many experiences that show her passion in educating students. In high school Gibson was a leader through her church youth group of a small group of girls.

“I mentored them all through high school while they were in middle school, and ever since then I’ve been really passionate on impacting youth,” Gibson said.

At Iowa State, Gibson is involved in the organization Minds Of Tomorrow, an organization where members go into schools and actually work with kids on math and science projects in their classrooms.

“It’s a really cool way to be a positive role model for young kids,” Gibson said.

Gibson will be speaking on the topic “Can America Still Compete?” on Thursday. She will speak with Margaret Mattix, vice president of ExxonMobil Chemical Co.