Women in Engineering

Previous articleNext article No AccessRevisions/ReportsWomen in Science and Engineering: Theory, Practice, and Policy in ProgramsMary Frank FoxMary Frank Fox Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Signs Volume 24, Number 1Autumn, 1998 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/495325 Views: 11Total views on this site Citations: 21Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1998 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Monica Gaughan, Barry Bozeman Institutionalized inequity in the USA: The case of postdoctoral researchers, Science and Public Policy 46, no.33 (Dec 2018): 358–368.https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scy063Yu Tao, Wei Hong, Ying Ma Gender Differences in Publication Productivity Among Academic Scientists and Engineers in the U.S. and China: Similarities and Differences, Minerva 55, no.44 (Apr 2017): 459–484.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-017-9320-6Elizabeth Stearns, Martha Cecilia Bottía, Eleonora Davalos, Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, Stephanie Moller, Lauren Valentino Demographic Characteristics of High School Math and Science Teachers and Girls’ Success in STEM, Social Problems 63, no.11 (Jan 2016): 87–110.https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spv027Gunilla Rooke Challenge Traditional Structures, (Jan 2013): 143–169.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-443-7_8Barbara Bagilhole A Vision for the Future of European Engineering, (Jan 2012): 35–44.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-982-4_4Mary Frank Fox, Gerhard Sonnert, Irina Nikiforova Programs for Undergraduate Women in Science and Engineering, Gender & Society 25, no.55 (Oct 2011): 589–615.https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243211416809Mary Frank Fox Women and Men Faculty in Academic Science and Engineering: Social-Organizational Indicators and Implications, American Behavioral Scientist 53, no.77 (Feb 2010): 997–1012.https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764209356234 Capturing young womens' imagination, IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine 3, no.22 (Dec 2009): 26–41.https://doi.org/10.1109/MWIE.2009.934544 Ji-eun Park, 정윤경, 오명숙, 김지현 Analyses of Female Engineering Education Programs Abroad, Journal of Engineering Education Research 12, no.33 (Sep 2009): 79–95.https://doi.org/10.18108/jeer.2009.12.3.79Mary Frank Fox, Gerhard Sonnert, Irina Nikiforova Successful Programs for Undergraduate Women in Science and Engineering: Adapting versus Adopting the Institutional Environment, Research in Higher Education 50, no.44 (Jan 2009): 333–353.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-009-9120-4Gerhard Sonnert, Mary Frank Fox, Kristen Adkins Undergraduate Women in Science and Engineering: Effects of Faculty, Fields, and Institutions Over Time, Social Science Quarterly 88, no.55 (Dec 2007): 1333–1356.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2007.00505.xWendy Bastalich, Suzanne Franzway, Judith Gill, Julie Mills, Rhonda Sharp DISRUPTING MASCULINITIES, Australian Feminist Studies 22, no.5454 (Nov 2007): 385–400.https://doi.org/10.1080/08164640701578765Mary Frank Fox, Carol Colatrella Participation, Performance, and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering: What is at Issue and Why, The Journal of Technology Transfer 31, no.33 (May 2006): 377–386.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-006-7209-xPetra Lucht Literatur, (Jan 2004): 333–345.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-86226-505-3_8Gloria E. Miller Frontier Masculinity in the Oil Industry: The Experience of Women Engineers, Gender, Work and Organization 11, no.11 (Jan 2004): 47–73.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0432.2004.00220.xStefan Timmermans A Black Technician and Blue Babies, Social Studies of Science 33, no.22 (Jun 2016): 197–229.https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127030332014Valerie A. Haines, Jean E. Wallace, M. Elizabeth Cannon Exploring the Gender Gap in Engineering: A Re-Specification and Test of the Hypothesis of Cumulative Advantages and Disadvantages, Journal of Engineering Education 90, no.44 (Jan 2013): 677–684.https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2001.tb00659.xMARY FRANK FOX WOMEN, SCIENCE, AND ACADEMIA, Gender & Society 15, no.55 (Oct 2001): 654–666.https://doi.org/10.1177/089124301015005002Mary Frank Fox Gender, Hierarchy, and Science, (): 441–457.https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-36218-5_20Mary Frank Fox Institutional Transformation and the Advancement of Women Faculty: The Case of Academic Science and Engineering, (): 73–103.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6959-8_3C. Colatrella Representing female-friendly science and technology in fiction and film, (): 19–26.https://doi.org/10.1109/ISTAS.1999.787303

Dr. Carpenter is Associate Dean for Administration and Strategic Initiatives and Wayne and Juanita Spinks Professor of Mathematics in the College of Engineering and Science at Louisiana Tech University. She also directs the Office for Women in Science and Engineering. She is PI of Louisiana Tech’s NSF ADVANCE grant to improve the success of women faculty. She was co-PI on the NSF grant which developed the WEPAN Knowledge Center and webinar series. She is Chair of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Grand Challenge Scholars Program National Steering Committee. She served for six years on the Board of Directors for WEPAN. She served on the National Advisory Panel for the Society for Women Engineer’s Assessing Women in Engineering (AWE) Project; as Vice President for Professional Interest Councils on the Board of Directors for the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE); and is Director-at-Large for the ASEE Women in Engineering Division. She regularly reviews for the ASEE Women in Engineering Division, the Frontiers in Education Conference, National Science Foundation programs (including the Graduate Fellows Program and ADVANCE), the Journal for Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, and has reviewed for the NAE Center for the Advancement of Scholarship in Engineering Education (CASEE) Applying Research to Practice (ARP) series. She currently co-advises diversity and mentoring programs for the NSF-funded Louisiana Alliance for Simulation-Guided Materials Application (LA-SiGMA) program; sits on the External Advisory Board for the NSF ADVANCE project at the University of West Florida; and is on the Leadership Team for the Louisiana Girls Collaborative Project.

Summary form only given. The IEEE Women in Engineering Program Manager would like to take this opportunity to thank all IEEE and Women in Engineering (WIE) Members, volunteers, and supporters for a wonderful 20 years! Our tremendous success would not have been possible without you. Your membership, activities, and dedication over the past two decades positioned WIE as a premier organization in support of women in science, technology, engineering, and math. Join us as we honor our past, treasure our present, and shape our bright future. Celebrate this milestone anniversary by submitting your individual or WIE event photos throughout the year. Submissions may be featured in our commemorative Global Faces of WIE e-book. Many thanks for all you do and for creating a dynamic and inspiring WIE community!

In 1991, the Women in Engineering (WIE) Initiative at the University of Washington was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to conduct a longitudinal study of undergraduate women pursuing degrees in science or engineering. Cohorts of approximately 100 students have been added to the study each year, for a current total of 672 participants. The objectives are: (a) to determine an accurate measure of retention by tracking individual students through their science and engineering academic careers; (b) to examine factors affecting retention of women in science and engineering; and (c) to evaluate the effectiveness of WIE's programs targeted at increasing enrollment and retention of women in science and engineering. These programs include interventions primarily during the freshman and sophomore years, which are critical attrition points. The results of this study are reported annually to the Dean of Engineering and related departments for consideration in policy formulation. Annual results of the study have shown consistent patterns of persistence factors and barriers for these high‐achieving women; most notably a significant drop in academic self‐confidence during their freshman year in college. In addition, individual tracking of these women has shown a retention that is much higher than the estimated national average for engineering and science students.

This is a worldwide concern in our community: there are too few women involved in engineering and even fewer in robotics. Each country is trying to tackle this issue with a variety of programs to attract and retain women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Many programs target university students and young professionals to help them design their career and seek a good life balance. Indeed, if we look at global figures, more than 85% of women in the work force manage small teams or are part of a team, and only 15% hold managerial positions, compared with 30% of men. In universities too, less than 18% of women hold professor-level positions, while 40% of assistant professors are women. The programs that do exist try to support the few women already involved in STEM. However, the imbalance in the proportion of men and women is already striking in first-year university students, so how can we recruit more women before then? Several studies have shown that the decision to study STEM occurs in a very early stage of education, and being aware of that, there are some programs that promote STEM in high schools and junior high schools. These programs are often organized by universities (see, for example, the “Women in Engineering” column from September 2013 titled “Attracting and Retaining Young Japanese Women in Robotics”). However, even these programs may be too late.

National Council for Research on Women finds that much of the progress that women have made in science, engineering, and technology has stalled or eroded. As we enter the new millennium, there will be an increasing need for a scientifically and technologically literate workforce. A student organization, Women in Technology, was formed at Purdue University—West Lafayette in 1998 in response to data indicating that there had been no increase in the number of women enrolled in the University's School of Technology over the past five years. Such data were consistent with those produced by national studies indicating that the trend of increasing numbers of women enrolling in engineering, science, and technology programs in American colleges and universities, established in the preceding two decades, had ceased. The aim of Women in Technology was to attract more women to the School, and reduce the attrition rate of women already in the program by serving as a well-recognized, formal context in which they could receive mentoring and in which they could find stable social support to help them achieve their academic and career objectives. This article discusses an overview of the organization, the results of a survey of members' undergraduate classroom experiences, student-generated strategies for addressing the concerns revealed in the survey, and the implementation of those strategies.

Many women today are drawn to disciplines other than engineering. However, career choices for women in biomedical engineering and health informatics enable the application of engineering, computing, and information technology to support health care and medicine for the betterment of society. “I was delighted when the now former IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) president, Prof. Donna Hudson, appointed me as the inaugural EMBS Liaison on the IEEE Women in Engineering (WiE) Committee,” states Dr. Carolyn McGregor, Canada research chair in health informatics at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Ontario, Canada (Figure 1), and also EMBS?WiE leader for 2008/2009.

Survive and thrive in graduate school. Designed to unravel some of the mystery around graduate school programs in science and engineering, this one-stop resource reinforces strategies for succeeding. Qualitative interviews offer first-hand stories and tips from women who have found success in academia, industry, and the public sector. Each chapter covers a different aspect of graduate school, from identifying funding sources, to writing the dissertation, to looking for a job. THE WOMAN'S GUIDE TO NAVIGATING THE PH.D. IN ENGINEERING & SCIENCE also focuses on the emotional and social difficulties women may experience, and offers practical suggestions and advice for surviving and thriving in graduate school. Featured topics include: * funding, requirements and standards, qualifiers * making the advising process work * writing the dissertation and defending * searching for a job * learning by critique * balancing competing needs THE WOMAN'S GU DE TO NAVIGATING THE PH.D. IN ENGINEERING & SCIENCE's goal is to help women overcome the stereotypes and hidden barriers they may encounter in graduate school - so that they may emerge ready for careers in the academic, corporate or public sector. About the Authors Dr. Barbara B. Lazarus is the associate provost for academic affairs and an adjunct professor of educational anthropology at Carnegie Mellon University. Recent publications include Journeys of Women in Science and Engineering: No Universal Constants (Temple University Press, 1997) and The Equity Equation: Fostering the Advancement of Women in the Sciences, Mathematics and (Jossey-Bass, 1996). Dr. Lazarus serves as a member of the Committee on Women's Studies in Asia, on the Advisory Committee of MentorNet, and as a board member of the Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network. Lisa M. Ritter is a communications consultant at Carnegie Mellon University and the editor of the quarterly graduate newsletter on campus. She has also worked as a public relations director and coordinator of professional development seminars for graduate students. Dr. Susan A. Ambrose is associate provost for educational development, director of the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence, and a principal lecturer in the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research interests include applying cognitive principles to education and understanding how class origin, sex, race and ethnicity, social conceptions of women, and other variables collectively influence women's life decisions and careers in engineering and science. Recent publications include Journeys of Women in Science and Engineering: No Universal Constants (Temple University Press, 1997) and The New Professor's Handbook (Anker Press, 1994). Dr. Ambrose was recently honored with an American Council on Education fellowship for the 1999-2000 academic year.

Many engineering organizations are realizing the benefits of diversity for innovation in their product development and team dynamics. While women remain a minority in the classroom and the workplace when it comes to engineering, they have registered significant gains. Despite decades of increases in percentages of women at lower levels however, gender diversity at high levels remains woefully low. Without integrating diversity at all levels of an organization, the full benefits of diversity cannot be reached. Furthermore, highly trained and experienced workers become dissatisfied and/or eventually leave if they cannot see a path to career advancement. Leadership development programs for women have recently sprung up in a number of engineering organizations to reap the full benefits of these companies’ investments in a diverse workforce. At Pratt & Whitney Canada, in 2007, a committee was struck to develop a Women’s Leadership Initiative that has been vibrant ever since, registering successes such as promotion of several women to Vice President status. In 2011, the NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering, BC and Yukon sponsored six introductory Leadership Development workshops developed by the Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology hosted at engineering workplaces across British Columbia. The presentation and paper will discuss the need for such programs, their essential ingredients and provide a preliminary assessment of their effectiveness.

Following a report on the low participation of women in science and engineering (Who Turns the Wheels, Science Council of Canada, 1985), there followed a decade of national strategies to redress the gender imbalance in these non-traditional fields and occupations. The participation of women in engineering undergraduate programs doubled during that period. In 1989, one industrial chair on Women in Engineering was created, and this led to several other national and regional efforts to remove obstacles and increase enrollments. In 1997, Canada multiplied its efforts greatly by appointing five new chairs for Women in Science and Engineering, to continue to develop and implement strategies in each region of Canada, coast to coast. A unique opportunity has been created to accelerate progress on all aspects of gender issues in this profession. The results expected from this level of activity and cooperation are bound to have a profound impact on the presence and recognition of women in these disciplines, and a successful outcome.

During the 2016 IEEE International Symposium on EMC in Ottawa, Canada, the EMC Society Women in Engineering (WIE) liaison Irina Kasperovich continued the tradition of holding a WIE IEEE EMC Society event. This tradition was initiated at the 2015 Joint IEEE International Symposium on EMC and EMC Europe in Dresden, Germany by the president of the EMC Society, Dr. Frank Sabath. In addition to the luncheon meeting there was also the WIE table top promotional exhibit. The WIE exhibit was on display during the EMC Symposium week in the exhibit hall area. Elena Uchiteleva, who is the Regional Coordinator of IEEE WIE Region 7 (Canada) was promoting the WIE at the booth. Many people stopped by to inquire about WIE. All promotional items that were provided for the booth by WIE were taken by the end of the Symposium. The WIE also provided 800 WIE flyers that were inserted in the registration Symposium bags which were distributed to all the attendees.

Tech Prep Consortium at Bristol Community College is at the forefront of collaborative education initiatives with its development and implementation of a Women In Technology (WIT) Project-Based Learning Program in High Tech Manufacturing. A Special Populations Grant in 1996 encouraged interested educational institutions to develop a program that would address the need to get high school students involved in careers in which one gender was underrepresented. Bristol Community College's Tech Prep Program responded and was awarded the funding necessary to implement a series of activities to address the need for young women to get involved in the various fields of engineering and technology. Crucial to the WIT Program's success was the establishment of strong partnerships with industry, government, and education. The Bristol Tech Prep Consortium, with the support of educators from area high schools and the leadership and resources of local businesses, recruited female high school students to participate in project-based learning at local plants. In 1997, the Bristol Community College Tech Prep Program implemented its first Women In Technology Project-Based Experience at Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) in Attleboro, Massachusetts for 12 students. At TI students have acted as junior engineers as they developed designs and devices that addressed realworld engineering problems. Every year since, the program has grown significantly and has had a positive effect on the lives of over 200 students. In 2000, Leach & Garner Company in North Attleboro, Massachusetts joined the WIT Program. Additional partnerships have included students, businesses and educators from Swansea, South Carolina and Skaget-Island Prep Works Consortium in Washington State. As many as 110 students have participated in this Women in Technology initiative per year. The results have been impressive. One study noted that 65% of the graduates from the 1997-98 WIT Program had gone to college to pursue an engineering or computer technology major. Also noteworthy are the devices and designs completed by the students on each site. Many of these have been adopted and showcased both locally and nationally. Businesses too have benefited from this partnership because they are the direct recipients of student projects that reduce time, labor, and related costs to industry. As a result of the WIT Program success, the College received an $848,000 National Science Foundation Grant to develop a Computer Integrated Manufacturing Program for women and nontraditional students in Southeastern Massachusetts. The Bristol Tech Prep Consortium's Women In Technology Program was also the recipient of the first place Bellwether Award in the category of workforce development. The WIT Program clearly demonstrates that integration of academic disciplines within a combined content and contextual framework can foster widespread success for students, schools, industry, and communities.

While this survey found that we all want to see more women in electronics and engineering, it also revealed that there’s still a long way to go

Objectives: Foeniculum vulgare due to phytoestrogens is important in the treatment of female sexual dysfunction including infertility. Accordingly, this study was conducted to investigate the effect of the F. vulgare seed extract on the fertility results of assisted reproductive technology (ART) in women with a poor ovarian response (POR). Materials and Methods: In this before-after intervention, 19 infertile women with POR were enrolled by a convenience sampling method. T h e amounts of luteinizing hormone ( LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), ovarian ultrasound volume, the number of preantral follicles, and the size of the prominent ovary were measured before treatment with F. vulgare. Then, patients were treated with F. vulgare for two months, followed by initiating the in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle. The number of embryos transferred in previous and current cycles was investigated after IVF. Finally, the data were analyzed in SPSS 16. Results: There was a significant difference in the serum LH level (P=0.002), LH/FSH (P=0.049), the number of follicles and ovules (P=0.003), endometrial thickness (P=0.04), and ovarian volume (P=0.03) between before and after treatment with F. vulgare. Moreover, a significant difference regarding the decreased number of required days for induction was observed between before and after treatment with F. vulgare (P=0.022). Conclusions: In general, the use of F. vulgare had positive effects on improving t h e quality of oocytes and female fertility indices in women with POR.

Congratulations and welcome to Celia Shahnaz, the Women in Engineering (WIE) Committee chair-elect for 2022 and incoming chair for 2023–2024. Although a formal “welcome” may not be needed—Shahnaz has been an active volunteer with WIE for 18 years and with IEEE for 21—as the first chair to be elected to the position by the global WIE membership, her promotion to this leadership role marks a new chapter in more ways than one.