African American Women in Engineering: Statistics and Solutions with Nicole Yates

African American Women Engineers' Silent Struggle Against Indifference

I had a hard time finding a title for this post. I wanted to come up with something that would speak to what people were already searching for. So I went to Google Trends and entered "black women in engineering". The results showed zero interest over the past 5 years. I tried "African American women in engineering". Again, no one was searching for these terms, according to Google. I tried narrowing the search to just the United States. Still, there was nothing.

It takes me an average of about 4 hours to produce each podcast episode. This includes curating the news, writing the news summaries, recording the interview, editing the interview, writing the script for the show, recording the show, and a host of other tasks. Suddenly I found myself spending 45 minutes on the title alone.

I thought that perhaps I wasn't entering the correct search terms, or that something was wrong with Google's algorithm. Then, after a longer period of time than it probably should have taken, I realized that this is exactly the problem.  I concluded that the lack of search inquiries for "African American women in engineering" over half a decade is further proof of an epidemic. African American women engineers are almost completely invisible. To make matters worse, no one cares.

My Google Trends results for "African American women in engineering"

But you're going to find out today that only part of my conclusion was true. While African American women engineers are indeed working in near-anonymity, my guest today does care about them. Nicole Yates cares about the dearth of African American women engineers and she wants to do something about it, which is why she edited a recent paper entitled Ignored Potential: A Collaborative Roadmap for Increasing African American Women in Engineering. The paper pulls together insights from some of the best minds working on improving diversity, inclusion and retention in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

 

The paper is solutions-focused, but its recommendations address two central statistics:

African Americans comprised just 4% of engineering degrees awarded in 2015, which is down a full percentage point, from 5%, in 2006. The number of engineering bachelor's degrees awarded to African American women has declined from 1,100 in 2005, to 809 in 2011 (Slaughter, J. B., Tao, Y., & Pearson, W. (2015). Changing the face of engineering: The African American experience. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press).

I hope you'll take some time to explore this issue further and include Nicole and her colleagues in your efforts.

Bio Nicole Yates is the National Society of Black Engineers' Senior Research Analyst and Applications Specialist. In this role, she conducts training, produces original research, and coordinates with an external network of researchers who support NSBE's mission.   Nicole holds a Master’s degree in Psychology from Stanford University. Her original thesis research focused on the dearth of women in STEM fields, an issue that personally concerns her. Nicole also completed her undergraduate degrees at Stanford (B.A., Psychology and B.A., Drama), where she participated in numerous activities including political advocacy, volunteer tutoring, and service-oriented trips. Prior to joining NSBE, Nicole served as an adjunct faculty member at Grand Canyon University in her hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. Resources Reports

Ignored Potential: A Collaborative Road Map for Increasing African-0American Women in Engineering edited by Nicole Yates (NSBE, 2017)

Websites

National Society of Black Engineers

10K Black Engineers Annually by 2025

Books

Working Smarter Not Just Harder by Carl Reid

Changing the Face of Engineering  edited by Dr. John Brooks Slaughter, Yu Tao and Willie Pearson, Jr.

News Roundup

The Department of Homeland Security and FBI issued a joint report warning that hackers have penetrated the computer networks of companies that operate nuclear power plants. Ellen Nakashima at the Washington Post confirmed on Saturday that government officials have officially attributed the hacks to Russia. Russia has taken down entire electric grids in Ukraine, leaving hundreds of thousands without power. At this time, however, U.S. officials are not reporting an imminent threat to civilians as the hacks were executed against administrative and business systems rather than nuclear power operations. However, the hack could be part of larger scale planning operations. Further, the report came with an amber alert, which is the second highest threat level.

The U.S. is gradually lifting its laptop ban on flights into the U.S. from majority-Muslim countries. Qatar Airways announced last week that the U.S. government has lifted the laptop ban against it. Qatar Airways joins Emirates, Turkish Airlines, and Etihad Airways on the list of airlines on which the U.S. has lifted its laptop ban. The laptop ban on direct flights originating in Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Turkey is still in effect on passengers traveling with Royal Jordanian, Kuwait Airways, EgyptAir and Royal Air Maroc.

Amazon and Reddit have joined the list of companies that will be participating in an organized, online protest on July 12th against the FCC's proposed measure to repeal the Obama-era net neutrality rules. Details of what the protest will entail have been kept under wraps. However, Etsy, Mozilla and others will also be participating.

Microsoft has announced more layoffs. The company, which is in the midst of a reorganization, announced last week that it would be cutting some 18,000 sales jobs.  This is in addition to the nearly 3,000 jobs the company announced it would be cutting last July.The company is shifting its focus and strategy to cloud-based services according to a memo leaked to the press back on June 30th.

Diane Bartz at Reuters reports that President Trump is supporting Apple in the company's appeal against a European Union decision ordering it to pay 13 billion euros ($14.8 billion) in back taxes to Ireland. The Trump administration filed an application to intervene in the appeal which is likely to take place in 2018. The European Commission ruled last year that Ireland granted Apple illegal tax subsidies.

District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California is allowing Twitter's lawsuit against the United States government to proceed. The U.S. government routinely makes data requests in the course of criminal investigations but only allows Twitter and other tech companies to report to the the public the number range of requests it has received from the feds rather than the exact number. For example, if the government made 2, 700 data requests from Twitter, Twitter might only be able to disclose to the public that the government made between 2,000 and 3,000 data requests. Twitter is arguing, among other things, that this is tantamount to a prior restraint on free speech and that it should be allowed to disclose the exact number of data requests the government has made.

The phrase "only in New York" has special meaning for Uber and Lyft. Noam Scheiber at The New York Times reported that the ride sharing companies may have been ripping off their drivers by manipulating their collection of sales tax in New York City. Actual ride receipts show Uber deducted New York State sales tax from what drivers were paid rather than passing the sales tax on to passengers, which is what is required by law. Uber argues the sales tax is built into the base fare. But taxi advocates aren't buying it because receipts from other states show Uber added sales tax to the passengers' final bill. A local investigation into Uber's taxi receipts also showed Uber used the same base rate in both New York City and Connecticut even though Connecticut has different tax laws.

The FCC has a new Chief Economist. Jerry Ellig was a Senior Fellow at the conservative Mercatus Center at George Mason University where he had worked since 1996.

The Department of Homeland Security is delaying a rule that would help make it easier for foreign entrepreneurs and investors to enter the United States. The rule -- the International Entrepreneur Rule-- was set to go into effect on July 17, but DHS announced today that it's pushing it back at least until March 14, 2018. DHS claims this will give it enough time to solicit comments from the public on the new rule. Harper Neidig in the Hill has the story.