Women in Science and Engineering

Topics

November 13, 2014BME200

“I never am really satisfied that I

understand anything; because understand it well

as I may, my comprehension can

only be an infinitesimal

fraction of all I want to

understand”

Ada Lovelace

Outline

• Linda Werner - Adjunct Prof in Computer Science

• Adrienne Harrell - Director of Undergraduate Student Affairs

• Lauren Lui - PhD Candidate BME, WiSE President Emerita

• Contexting

• Clip of video on unconscious bias

• Panel discussion (each person presents)

• Open for questions and discussion

Satya NadellaMicrosoft CEO

“It’s not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along.”  He added, “That might be one of the initial ‘super powers,’ that quite frankly, women (who) don’t ask for a raise have. It’s good karma. It will come back.”

How should women ask for a raise?

Nadella later apologized and started a diversity initiative within Microsoft.

Generalizations...

xkcd.com

Why is diversity important?

• Do you know the percentage of women receiving engineering degrees?

• Why don’t more women enter the physical sciences, engineering and computing-related fields? and why is this weird?

• Why is it important to have a 50/50 ratio of women/men in STEM fields?

Why is diversity important?

• Why don’t more women enter the physical sciences, engineering and computing-related fields? and why is this weird?

• Why is it important to have a 50/50 ratio of women in STEM fields?

• Diversity for the workforce

• Gender-balanced teams do a better job

• consider airbag safety for children and women

• If the field doesn’t reflect the demographics in the population, the field isn’t drawing from the full talent pool possible

Slides from ISEE

Video: Presentation by Dr. Brian WelleGoogle Ventures - Sept 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLjFTHTgEVU

Unconscious Bias

Methods for combating unconscious bias (from Dr. Welle)

1. Articulate structure for success

2. Collect Data

3. Evaluating subtle messages

4. Hold everyone accountable

Methods for combating unconscious bias (from Dr. Welle)

1. Articulate structure for success

1. Police Chief study - preference of school smarts vs street smarts

2. What does success look like?

3. How do you evaluate someone else’s ideas?

2. Collect Data

3. Evaluating subtle messages

4. Hold everyone accountable

Study: Hiring among professors

• “Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students”

• Moss-Racusin et al 2012 PNAS

• Identical resumes, different names

Methods for combating unconscious bias (from Dr. Welle)

1. Articulate structure for success

2. Collect Data

1. Google Doodles 2013 - only 17% of birthdays celebrated were of women

2. Project Implicit

3. How do mentor?

3. Evaluating subtle messages

4. Hold everyone accountable

Study: faculty mentoring

• Faculty more likely to respond to Caucasian males for mentoring

• Milkman et al 2014, What Happens Before? A Field Experiment Exploring How Pay and Representation Differentially Shape Bias on the Pathway into Organizations

• Emailed 6,500 professors from 89 disciplines at the top 259 schools, pretending to be students. Only variable was the sender's name

• As Milkman told NPR, professors "ignored requests from women and minorities at a higher rate than requests from white males."

Methods for combating unconscious bias (from Dr. Welle)

1. Articulate structure for success

2. Collect Data

3. Evaluating subtle messages

1. Microaggressions - e.g. time we spend talking with others, decor

2. Questioning, interrupting during presentations

3. Conference speakers - Jonathan Eisen protest

4. At Google, 15-20 conference rooms named after scientists, only 1 named after a woman

4. Hold everyone accountable

Microinequities

• “Silent Technical Privilege” by Philip Guo

• http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/01/programmer_privilege_as_an_asian_male_computer_science_major_everyone_gave.html

Methods for combating unconscious bias (from Dr. Welle)

1. Articulate structure for success

2. Collect Data

3. Evaluating subtle messages

4. Hold everyone accountable

1.Question first impressions

2.Empower everyone to call out bias

Internal barriers

• Impostor Syndrome

• “I feel like I’m fooling everyone”

• “It’s just a fluke that I got that award”

• Sheryl Sandberg

• Ted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18uDutylDa4

• At Grace Hopper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMVCSrm65kg

• 9.20 (numbers), 19.00, 23(ambition gap)