New Networking Group Seeks to Help Women Gain Traction in Academic Engineering

A new joint program by the University of Washington, North Carolina State University, and California Polytechnic State University seeks to build a support group for women engineers seeking to transfer from graduate programs into tenure-track faculty positions.

The Launching Academics on the Tenure-Track: An Intentional Community in Engineering (LATTICE) effort focuses on forging connections and offering support to early-career women and underrepresented minority women in engineering who are interested in faculty careers. The first program will be held this May in Bainbridge Island, Washington. It will focus on postdoctoral women in electrical engineering and computer science. The LATTICE program is financed by a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation.

The LATTICE communities forged at the national symposia will be extended through peer mentoring circles and online connections. The circles are designed to offer frequent and safe forums to discuss concerns, receive constructive feedback and group wisdom, and set realistic personal goals. Discussions may include topics such as time management, navigating institutional culture, stress and conflict, writing and productivity, and self care.

“LATTICE provides junior women support to become proactive and strategic about their careers,” said co-principal investigator Eve A. Riskin, professor of electrical engineering and associate dean of diversity and access for the University of Washington College of Engineering. “I was hired in electrical engineering at the University of Washington in 1990 and would have loved to have had such a program.”

Professor Riskin is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She holds two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University