Broadening Participation in Engineering at the Undergraduate, Graduate, Postdoctoral, and Faculty Levels

Funded Projects:

NSF #2011110 Research: Characterizing Postdoctoral Education, Mentorship, Gender, and Race in the Formation of Academic Engineers and Computer Scientists

Postdoctoral education can play a critical role in future research success of computer science (CS) or engineering faculty members, but these experiences are under-studied in engineering and CS education literature. The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering indicates that there are nearly 8600 postdoctoral scholars funded per year across engineering and CS; however, the lack of diversity in postdoctoral appointments is alarming. For example, women of color comprise well below 0.5% of postdoctoral scholars in their fields. Postdoctoral appointments are facilitated through faculty mentorship to help scholars develop deeper methodological and content competency, research management skills, and writing, publishing, and researching skills in preparation for a future academic career. Given that completing at least one postdoctoral research position is common for engineering and CS students preparing for competitive academic careers, these numbers can help explain continued underrepresentation of women and people of color in the professoriate. To this end, the purpose of this grant is to characterize the development of knowledge, skills, attributes, and competencies in engineering and computer science scholars, collecting perspectives of both stakeholders in the postdoc-mentor dyad with an explicit focus on same- and cross- gender and race dyads.

If you are a postdoctoral scholar or a faculty member that is currently/has supervised a postdoc recently, and would like to participate in our research, click here!

Other Selected Publications

Many of our projects have implications for broadening participation in engineering, equity, and inclusion at all levels: undergraduate, graduate, and faculty. Here is a sampling of affiliated projects and deliverables.

Menold, J. & Berdanier, C.G.P.* (2019). Building a community of female makers through hands-on experiences in a community MakerSpace. IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Cincinnati OH.

*Berdanier, C.G.P., Baluni, S., and Whitehair, C. (2017) Investigating strategies of pre-tenure women engineering faculty to overcome microaggressions in the classroom. IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Oct 18-21, 2017, Indianapolis, IN.

Berdanier, C.G.P.* (2019). Toward a Mid-Career Engineering Faculty Development Initiative: Results from Faculty Focus Groups at an R1 Institution. IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Cincinnati OH.