2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper explores how the identities of Indigenous computer scientists and engineers intersect with their cultural values around their motivations to be in these disciplines and around how they approach their work. This paper draws from a larger study funded by the National Science Foundation and is based on a set of fourteen photo elicitation interviews with Indigenous engineers and computer science students and professionals. Participants shared photographs and reflected on supports, challenges, and motivations due to the lived intersections of their identities as computer scientists and engineers and as Indigenous individuals. We found that the values of giving back and Nation building and the integration of traditional Indigenous knowledge with western disciplinary training are among the main motivators for Indigenous computer scientists and engineers to be in their disciplines. We recommend integrating Indigenous values and knowledges and western training to support the development of positive identities of Indigenous students and professionals in engineering and computing.