2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper explores what persistence truly looks like when the systems built to include you were never designed with you in mind. Centering the lived experiences of women engineers from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds, this research draws on narrative interviews with members of the National Society of Black Engineers, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers. Their stories reveal the tension between policy promises of inclusion and the daily realities of navigating bias, isolation, and the quiet erosion of DEI commitments within technical spaces.

Grounded in intersectionality and Black feminist theory, the study examines how racism, sexism, and institutional culture intersect to shape both the obstacles and the acts of defiance these women encounter. Through narrative analysis, their words uncover a shared pattern: persistence is not passive endurance, it’s strategic resistance. Participants built communities of care, mentorship networks, and advocacy channels that allowed them to survive and reshape spaces that often sought to silence them.

This research calls for reframing persistence as a form of leadership, one that refuses to accept neutrality as progress. It highlights how culturally responsive networks, policy fluency, and collective accountability can transform engineering education and practice into places where belonging is not conditional. In doing so, it positions women’s resilience as both an outcome and a method of change, illuminating what it takes to build equity into the core of engineering’s future.