2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

“What if I just do what I have a pull for?” Negotiating the Borderlands of Queer and Engineering Epistemologies

Presented at ERM: Examining Identity

Using Anzaldua's framework of identity borderlands in Nepantla, this research brief contributes to the field of engineering education by investigating how Amelia, a queer engineering student of color, bridges queer and engineering ways of knowing. Research about LGBTQ+ engineering students has primarily focused on cultural aspects of the discipline that negatively affect students' pathways. Engineering students are navigating multiple, sometimes conflicting, minoritized identities and their accompanying epistemologies at the crossroads of these cultural components. This paper is part of a more extensive study investigating the experiences of LGBTQ+ engineering and computer science students. It uses inductive qualitative coding methods to generate themes for one participant answering the following research question: 1) How do engineering and queer epistemologies co-exist for one queer engineering student? Initial findings include how Amelia described the epistemology of understanding her queer sexual orientation and gender identities as nuanced and fluid, in contrast with her engineering epistemology, which she characterized as objective, quantifiable, and reductive. These findings suggest that queer engineering students at the intersection of multiple identities are aware of and actively negotiate ways of knowing, providing them with robust code-switching mechanisms that inform how much they coalesce their social identities within engineering spaces. Furthermore, participants make informed choices regarding how and when to invoke different epistemological constructions based on their understanding of engineering, understanding of themselves, and who they are around.

Authors

Dr. Hector Enrique Rodríguez-Simmonds http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4417-1859 Boston College [biography]

Héctor E. Rodríguez-Simmonds is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Human-Centered Engineering at Boston College. Before receiving his Ph.D. in Engineering Education, he earned his master's degree in electrical and computer engineering. Héctor's research primarily investigates how students negotiate their visible and less apparent identities as they form their professional identity, specifically at the intersection of their racial/ethnic, sexual orientation, gender, and engineering identities. Héctor’s research projects range from autoethnographic inquiries that investigate culturally informed collaborative qualitative research spaces, neurodivergence and disability in engineering, and examining the structural factors that impact student experiences in computer engineering courses. Héctor has taught various engineering and computing courses, showing learners he cares about them and their future success by fostering a space where learners can feel safe to experiment, iterate, get messy, and try different problem-solving approaches while encouraging criticality of their professional practice, leading to holistic solutions for a broader range of individuals.
Mx. Sage Maul Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE) [biography]

Sage Maul (he/they) is a PhD student in Purdue University's School of Engineering Education. Sage's research explores structural factors on student experiences for disabled student and in electrical and computer engineering courses. Sage graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue and worked in industry for 5 years before starting graduate school. His experiences with accommodations in undergrad and getting diagnosed with ADHD as an adult inform their research work.
Grayson Weston
Kendra Preval

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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For those interested in:

engineering
gender
LGBTQIA+
undergraduate