Roberta Rincon is the Society of Women Engineers' (SWE) Manager of Research. Before joining SWE, Roberta Rincon was a Senior Research and Policy Analyst at The University of Texas System. She has over 15 years of experience in higher education policy research, coordinating various award and faculty recruitment programs, analyzing the impact of state legislative actions, and preparing white papers on topics ranging from classroom utilization to student success. Roberta received her B.S. in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, an MBA and an M.S. in Information Management from Arizona State University, and recently completed her Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Planning from UT Austin.
In this episode we discussed how to:
reduce gender bias in STEM. prevent the attrition of women away from STEM fields. improve the representation of women in tenured, full-time STEM professorships. improve school compliance with Title IX of the U.S. Education Amendments of 1972 (prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding).Resources
Title IX at 45 Chapter on Women and STEM (National Coalition for Women and Girls in STEM, 2017)
Bossy Pants by Tina Fey
NEWS ROUNDUP
The FCC announced the winners of its wireless spectrum auction last week. The auction involved creating incentives for broadcasters to sell their spectrum back to the FCC, with the FCC, in turn, auctioning that spectrum to wireless carriers hungry for spectrum to expand their networks. T-Mobile won the most licenses after spending $8 billion for the spectrum, followed Dish at $6.2 billion, Comcast at $1.7 billion, and 59 other bidders. Maggie Reardon has the story in CNET.
Remember the Wheeler FCC's plan to allow travelers to make mobile phone calls in-flight? Well, it looks like you're going to have to keep that phone in airplane mode when you fly. Current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai put an order on circulation that would kill the plan, and since the FCC still only has 3 commissioners instead of the usual five, and 2 are Republican, the order is likely to pass. Laura Hautala reports in CNET.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo pledged to crack down on sites like Wikileaks and activists like Edward Snowden. Pompeo said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event last week that these so-called transparency activists "champion nothing but their own celebrity." Pompeo did not state specifically what specific measures the CIA would take, but said the agency's approaches will be constantly evolving. Catch the story in next.gov.
The man who continued to robocall consumers on the Do-Not-Call registry will have to pay at least $65,000 to the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC announced the settlement on Thursday. Justin Ramsey will have to pay up to $2.2 million if the agency finds that he and his company lied about their finances. Brian Fung has the story in the Washington Post.
Microsoft reported that the number of foreign intelligence surveillance requests it received from the federal government for the first 6 months of 2016 was nearly double what it was the previous year. The number of requests last year stood between 1,000 to 1,499. Dustin Volz reports in Reuters.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued an order banning commercial and hobby drones from flying over 133 U.S. military bases. The drones can come within 400 feet but no more. Penalties will include fines and prosecutions. David Krevets reports in Ars.
In Google's lawsuit against Uber for allegedly stealing trade secrets pertaining to Google's autonomous vehicle technology, Uber attempted to claim Fifth Amendment protection for the due diligence report it put together when it was developing its self-driving car initiative. But the Court isn't buying it and the due diligence report will be admitted. Google claims the report will prove Uber stole 14,000 files from Google. Johana Bhuiyan and Tess Townsend have the story in Recode.
