2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Redefining Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty with Longitudinal Support for Women and Underrepresented Minorities

Presented at Women in Engineering Division (WIED) Technical Session 3

Despite many efforts to increase the diversity among electrical and computer engineering (ECE) faculty, the number of women and underrepresented minority faculty is still alarmingly low. Over the past seven years, NSF-sponsored iREDEFINE hosted 179 underrepresented ECE postdoctoral and PhD students for a two-day workshop designed to motivate and prepare them to pursue faculty positions. Although this program was designed to increase the diversity of ECE faculty, it can serve as a model for other STEM fields. Details of the iREDEFINE program will be shared in this paper along with quantitative and qualitative data demonstrating the success of iREDEFINE.

Work is underway to increase the breadth and depth of iREDEFINE by aligning the activities to the steps of each students' career path in order to engage them earlier in their studies, increase the number of touch points throughout graduate school, and continue their mentorship into the first years of an academic appointment. This multifaceted mentoring program, the iREDEFINE Inclusive Mentoring Hubs (i2mHubs), consists of three comprehensive modules: (1) Early-stage graduate students will be introduced to academic career paths through online interactive content. (2) Graduates of Module 1 will have the opportunity to apply for iREDEFINE, an advanced workshop on job search strategies and networking held in parallel with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association Annual Conference. (3) Graduates of Module 2 will be invited to join a mentoring network connecting them to iREDEFINE alumni and current and former ECE department heads.

Authors

Dr. Barbara E. Marino http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3515-8153 Loyola Marymount University [biography]

Dr. Barbara E. Marino is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Loyola Marymount University. Dr. Marino received the B.S.E.E. degree from Marquette University and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Marino has many years of industry experience including work at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. on projects related to military ID systems and work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena researching ways of using image processing techniques in the development of deep space optical communication systems. In recent years she has directed her attention to research that aims to improve engineering education and to increase the number of underrepresented faculty and students in engineering.
Dr. Agnieszka Miguel Seattle University [biography]

Dr. Miguel is Professor and Department Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seattle University. Dr. Miguel received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington, and MSEE and BSEE from Florida Atlantic University. Her professional interests involve image processing, machine learning, and diversity, equity, and inclusion in engineering education.
Dr. Miguel held several ASEE officer positions including Vice President for External Relations, First Vice President, and Vice President of Professional Interest Councils. She was a member of the ASEE Board of Directors from 2016 until 2023. She was the President of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA) in 2022-2023 and was the Program Chair of the 2022 ECEDHA Annual Conference.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

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