In 1996, two Kenyan scholars were awarded Fulbright Scholarships — honors the U.S. Department of State grants to promising young academics worldwide. Fred Muyia Nafukho, who joined the 91̽»¨ earlier this year as the vice provost for academic personnel, vividly remembers the day he was called to the U.S. embassy in Nairobi.
Joyce Yen — director of the 91̽»¨â€™s ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change, an NSF-funded body to promote female STEM faculty on campus — recently worked with the Heising-Simons Foundation to dismantle bias and promote diversity in a prominent grant that the Foundation awards to postdoctoral researchers in planetary science. In this Q&A, Yen shares the many, sometimes counterintuitive ways bias can work against goals toward greater diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM fields.
A 91̽»¨ study finds that women authors are significantly under-represented in high-profile academic journals.
In the 15 years since the ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change opened its doors, the 91̽»¨has nearly doubled the number of female faculty across 19 science, technology, engineering and math departments.
A new national program at the 91̽»¨â€” LATTICE — aims to diversify the national engineering faculty population by building supportive communities during the critical transition from graduate studies to permanent tenure-track positions.
Pursuing scientific or engineering careers in industry, government or private research after getting a Ph.D. used to be considered a one-way ticket out of academia. But new 91̽»¨research finds numerous benefits — to students, researchers and academic institutions looking to diversify their faculty — in making that return trip easier.
The 91̽»¨ has the nation’s highest percentage of women in tenure-track engineering faculty positions. An online toolkit based on UW’s leadership workshops for department chairs could help replicate that success at other institutions.