Virtual Schedule – On Demand

Organizations are focusing more and more on DEI&B – but with the renewed focus, the approach hasn’t changed much. ERGs continue to be an afterthought. Lean is typically seen as a tool to help manufacturing operations be more efficient. And it is – but can is be used in spaces outside the shop floor to help advance the goal of diversity, equity, inclusion, and allyship. The session will focus on how our Women’s Network has used classic lean tools like standard work, value stream mapping and BOB/WOW analysis, to improve engagement and belonging across our organization.

Have you ever thought that you would like to teach at a college or university, but you felt it was not possible without an advanced degree. Well think again, many colleges and universities are looking for someone just like yourself with an engineering degree and real-life experience. Come join me for talk about how the open the doors to this new opportunity.

Once you have a rock star team you want to retain them! During this session I will help provide some insightful ideas and practical ways to use your sphere of influence to help increase retention in your team. We will explore key reasons on why employees stay at their jobs and employers. Next, we will help you to discover areas under your control that you can leverage to help make potential improvements to increase and influence retention. This will be a fun and interactive session regardless of your current job role.

Are you interested in learning about the upcoming changes to SWE’s Awards & Recognition Program? Join members of SWE’s Task Force who have spent the past 18 months reviewing and revising the program to be a more integrated awards experience that meets the needs of members and sponsors. Attendees will learn the efforts the Task Force undertook to ensure a consistent, cohesive program, and what resources are available to help ensure a smooth transition to the new program.

Engaging in advocacy at the local level is an exciting endeavor. Becoming a part of the process of “making the sausage,” i.e., working on legislation, is a profound learning experience that is both exhilarating and empowering. Come listen to one SWE member’s adventures in navigating the process of co-authoring a STEM-related bill and getting it into the legislative process in her state. Learn how engagement at this level can make a direct impact, even if the legislation does not actually get passed. The speaker will also describe how she used skills developed during her engineering career to help move the bill through the process.

Speak up! Whether you are advocating for yourself or for a collective, at its core, advocacy is often about speaking up. You need to use your voice, and you have to develop it in order to use it effectively. Having a voice is perhaps more important than having a seat at the table – it’s about engaging with others to impact change, encouraging ones-self to speak up and feeling empowered to do so. In many ways, there has never been a better time to bring up rational, creative, and innovative ideas for positive change – be it to influence the way we work, cultures we cultivate, or purpose we pursue. Against the backdrop of her own journey, and with examples from her long career, Jayshree will share a simple framework to access, develop, and use your voice to advocate and impact change. Afterall, it is time to come off mute!

As the corporate environment has shifted to include remote work, there has been a disturbing trend of disengagement and quiet quitting due to employees experiencing a lack of motivation and connection. In 2021, to reengage and reconnect our work community, we developed a Lean In program for our company headquarters that is open to every employee, regardless of age, gender, or role in the organization. This program creates an environment where we provide: peer mentoring across all platforms and business units, challenge unconscious bias and create a network of allies, and provide professional development opportunities focusing on motivation and highlighting contributions. Celebrating the third successful year with 15 Lean In Circles and 135 members annually, participants credit their experience as enabling them to gain confidence in achieving their personal and professional goals. We are excited to share our best practices with the broader community and help other organizations Lean In.

Human Factors engineering can champion diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B). It does this in two ways, through its iterative process and through building unique skillsets. Human Factors engineering enables rapid iteration, validates key business assumptions, reduces risk, and ensures cross-functional team alignment through the eyes of the customer. At its core though, Human Factors is all about representing diverse opinions to ensure a product works for all users. Let’s discuss how an Agile approach to Human Factors allows you to develop skillsets unique to other engineering fields. This workshop connects these skillsets to principles of DEI&B and product development methodology.

Should you care about ethics in the new world driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) decisions? Why can’t you trust the machines to make the right decisions? Let us take a real world example of a loan application. Have you been rejected for a loan application, but someone else with similar financial background but a different gender was accepted? Did you get an explanation of why you were rejected? Did you understand what would have yielded a favorable outcome? How can the machine learning algorithms behind these decisions be biased? To learn more, join me in a session on fairness, trust and explainability of AI models. Welcome to the world of responsible, ethical and trustworthy AI!

Digital accessibility is increasingly a hot topic as public awareness grows and legal and contractual requirements proliferate. To be truly compliant, accessible solutions require more than just strong color contrast and clear alt text for images. Just as there are many types of disabilities (including permanent, temporary and situational), there are many varied and sometimes contradicting needs that users have from the digital interfaces they’re working with. Understanding and designing flexible, accessible solutions is both a moral imperative and an opportunity for companies to improve their designs for all users.

Meaningful personal growth comes from putting yourself into challenging situations and learning through experience. Have you considered how your hobbies and life experiences are impacting your leadership style and how you should integrate those hobbies to strengthen your brand? In this session I will review how running and drag racing is an integral part of my identify and leadership approach. I will give you a brief introduction to articulating your brand and building your support system to stay energized.

Most people kickstart their day with a nice cup of coffee. Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, impacting economics, politics, and technology. It is predicted that in 2050, half of the coffee-growing regions will be unusable, and the demand for coffee will have doubled. This decline could mean a shift in how we store and consume coffee. Brewing accounts for coffee’s color, flavor, aroma, and texture. With the variety of coffee brewing from around the world, the future of coffee could already be out there. From pour over to nitro brew, this session will look at past brewing trends and techniques and integrate them with current technology to look at what a new coffee future looks like. Will captured carbon dioxide lead to a rise in carbonated coffee? Feel free to enjoy your favorite caffeinated beverage as we explore the future of coffee.

The Cost of Mental Health: What Do You Owe, is an informative reflection on the negative behaviors and actions we exhibit to prove our worth in engineering. Whether it be an undergraduate student about to embark on their career in engineering or a tenured professional looking at the prospects of retiring, we as women minimize ourselves to make others more comfortable in exchange for our mental health. Throughout this talk, we will acknowledge detrimental behaviors such as overworking ourselves and internalizing criticism. In addition to that, we will discuss the strengths of our individual backgrounds and our intersectionality. By doing this, we can identify positive actions to better help our mental health and better the collective mental health of women in the engineering spaces we proudly occupy.

In a rapidly changing technology sector, it is key for engineers to manage company assets with robust lifecycle plans that optimize operational and financial investments. A successful asset management strategy requires clearly defined asset policies, governance and control standards to move assets onto a planned maintenance and replacement path, to mitigate unforeseen disruptions and losses, moving assets on to a strategic plan and away from a default position of “run until it fails” position. No matter what type of engineering role an employee holds within the organization, they can show leadership in the context of asset management in their area. With over 30 years of experience in various industries, Tracy is an established professional that will share the pillars, application and benefits of having an asset management strategy and the importance of all roles in a business to support the management of corporate assets.

Serving as a mentor or advisor to a team of students carrying out a project is a hugely rewarding role – but how do you make sure the students get the best possible experience? It’s important to know when and how to step in, how to provide guidance while still giving autonomy, and what you can do to ensure students are learning, growing, and developing through the team and its activities. In this session, you will hear from two speakers who have advised multiple student teams at both the high school and collegiate level and learn how to go beyond the basic requirements of an advisor and mentor role to truly strive for excellence as a mentor and advisor.

The expansion and transformation of the hydrogen economy is a critical component of decarbonizing our existing energy system. Hydrogen today is generated largely through steam-methane reforming (SMR) technology which has a large carbon footprint associated with production. Because of this, blue and green hydrogen have recently taken center stage in the journey to reach net zero. In the near term, low carbon hydrogen can be used in producing traditional and renewable fuels. Looking ahead, these technologies have the potential to form new markets, and to integrate with various industries including steel and cement. Join two hydrogen process engineers as they discuss these technologies, their future potential and uses, as well as the skills needed to succeed in the hydrogen economy.

Did you start your PhD intending to pursue an academic career? Are you a current or former academic exploring your options in industry? Then this is the right session for you! In this session we will discuss potential career paths post academia. Learn how academic skills can be translated into the non-academic world and lead you to a rewarding career outside of academia. We will discuss how to leverage your academic and professional network to find career leads and learn how to highlight unique skills on a resume or job application. Finally, we will share strategies and best practices for identifying career opportunities and leveraging traditional academic skills.

Did you know that the #1 killer of women is heart disease or that 55% of women over the age of 50 will develop some form of a pelvic floor disorder? What immediately comes to mind when you think engineering? Most likely it isn’t designing a bra with EKG sensors or building a game on your phone to connect with a pelvic floor trainer. Women’s health issues have been taboo in the past, and we’re going to deconstruct that mentality by talking more about things that may affect you or someone you know in the future. This session will shed light on what others in the femtech industry are innovating to bridge the current women’s health gap. Additionally, we will identify other areas that are still lacking to provide inspiration to those looking to break into the rising femtech industry. The future isn’t just female…it’s femtech!

In a world defined by new threats, competitors, and opportunities to advance the needs and aspirations of the American people, the renewal and reorientation of American foreign policy is vital and urgent. At the heart of this realignment are STEM policy and disciplines, particularly engineering, to ensure continued U.S. strategic leadership in critical and emerging technologies, cyberspace and digital policy, global health security, and climate and energy among other key issues. Achieving these goals also requires we strengthen and expand our critical infrastructure in information technology, cybersecurity, physical security, countering technical espionage, and facility construction and maintenance. American engineers can play an important role in this effort through public-private partnership and contributing to a Federal workforce that fully represents the American people and its rich diversity and talents to meet global challenges. This panel will focus on STEM in foreign affairs and opportunities that exist at the Department of State.

Leading by influence is an invaluable skill to have, particularly if you need to lead an initiative when you aren’t someone’s supervisor. In this talk, attendees will learn the key steps to leading a technical initiative based on real life experience working in a global organization where the team for the initiative is spread across the globe in five different countries. Lessons on being a technical expert in a large corporation will also be discussed.

In the midst of a busy life that is full of deadlines and high and predictable standards, it is easy to give up the space that allows creativity and innovation to occur. But that doesn’t have to be the case: there are ways to foster creativity and provide a space for you and others to innovate. Join a panel of women including Hackathon organizers, patent holders, innovation champions, and team leaders. Hear how they embrace diversity and promote a culture of innovation creating a space for creativity with tangible examples that you can apply in your life whether it be as a student or as part of a startup or a large organization.

Conversations about maternity leave have gained prominence in recent years, but they often don’t go beyond the leave period. There is a need to discuss how to support women when they return to work after having a newborn. New mothers often face various other physical and emotional challenges, apart from postpartum depression, which often go unrecognized, due to a lack of awareness. Awareness is the first step to providing the necessary support. It is vitally important to start discussions, share experiences, and brainstorm ideas, to develop policies that address postpartum complications, beyond the leave period. These conversations about supporting women, as they return to work, are essential to help them thrive in the workplace. Better support leads to better employee satisfaction and only then, can we create, an environment that encourages the success of women, leading to a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

How do I start investing? What is a 401k? What is the difference between a traditional and a Roth IRA? Personal finance education is crucial and yet we do not learn about it in school. Without financial education, financial freedom can never be attained. Through our dynamic speaker, this talk will explore the questions asked above as well as several crucial personal finance topics including credit scores, debt management, and creating a personal financial plan. This will also give a look behind the curtain as the speakers will discuss their tips and lessons learned that have gathered through her own personal finance journey. This interactive presentation will cover how to start investing for retirement, budgeting basics, negotiation strategies, and more so that you can engineer your own personal finance success!

Do you walk away from SWE conferences wishing you could do this type of learning all year? We sure did! After last year’s annual conference (WE22), we were inspired to kick off our own professional development series. It started as a small group of colleagues watching TED talks, then evolved into a flourishing team-wide learning group. This weekly roundtable established the space for us to explore new ways of thinking and grow together with authenticity and vulnerability. In this session, we will examine what a learning group looks like, why it works, and give you the tools to create one too. Together, let’s plant the seeds for your professional growth!!

As a first-time field engineer, we often are full of the confidence to jump in feet first, but once we’re there, how do you handle certain situations? This session goes through real-life situations from women field engineers who had to find the confidence to speak up when it mattered. This topic touches on some uncomfortable situations and how they were handled either correctly or incorrectly, and should leave you with the tools to be confident when it matters.

The challenge I am addressing is that ineffective communication impacts engineers’ performance and career advancement. Communication is the essence of life, allowing us to express feelings, pass on information and share thoughts. Effective communication is the process whereby the message is received and understood with clarity and purpose. K.I.S.S stands for Keep It Simple Sweetheart. Engineers should always apply the K.I.S.S principle in their communication, i.e., comprehend and compose the message they want to convey in a simple way with an understanding of the audience’s background. This can significantly improve the effectiveness of the communication. However, as Einstein said: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. In the session, I will share my personal experience as examples to elaborate the engineer version of effective communication with K.I.S.S principle applied.

Building a productive, inclusive, diverse, and happy environment is critical for individuals, teams, and organizations. Having well-thought-out and fair interview practices, reducing biases, is critical to promoting equity and inclusion in the organization when building teams. Interview feedback should be based on observable facts from different perspectives, not on feelings. Editorializing on someone’s psyche or value system can be prejudicial, especially in written feedback if the interviewer is not present during discussion sessions. In this session, two leaders will share their experience, one who has years of experience interviewing candidates with and without a standard process and one who was recently hired using our standard process. Session attendees will understand how interview practices can impact diversity and equity and learn how to apply them to enhance their process.

Returning to work can be one of the most personal life decisions a mother can make. Depending on the woman’s business, role, and location, the facility may be suited for welcoming her back at this transitional phase of life – but many are not. To make going from maternity to “returnity” a bit less stressful, we will cover topics integrated by women who lived through it and then employed lean methodology to enable their company to better support employees returning and still nursing their new babes. Come hear examples of pilot programs and policies implemented at a large corporate site of 2500+ employees (including a nursing baby access program, mother’s room upgrades, and shipment of breastmilk during business travel). These working moms will also share examples of where they personally experienced the maternal wall bias and strategies for how they dealt with it.

Greeting each team member by name, interviewing for “culture add” rather than “culture fit,” and modeling work-life balance by disconnecting from email after hours are just some of many inclusive leadership actions. Fostering inclusive team cultures that embrace the creative tension stemming from diverse teams will maximize belonging, collaboration, and innovation. Pulling from their experiences across technical, line, program, and volunteer leadership roles, the speakers will share their best practices for inclusive leadership. Both informal and formal leaders at all levels of an organization will walk away from this session with actionable tips for fostering psychological safety, running inclusive meetings, practicing inclusive hiring, recognizing the diverse contributions of their team members, and more!

Looking for a job can be a job in it of itself. Add on the responsibilities of being in school and/or already working, and it’s nearly impossible to have enough time to tailor your resume for each application, attend career fairs, and everything else you need to do to earn that dream job! In this workshop, attendees will learn how to efficiently apply for jobs in 4 steps: (1) Craft your content: Efficiently tailor documents for each job application. (2) Connect to your contacts: Discuss apps to track your network and contacts you are currently engaging. (3) Ace the application: Create a system to track job application status. (4) Interview with intention: Streamline “interview etiquette” for all your job interviews. Following these steps, you can earn your dream job, even if there is no time to find it.

Managing people is hard! Do you ever wish you had more training, guidance and knowledge to become a better people manager? If so, this is your chance to learn from the best – other leaders like you. Peer-to-peer networking is undervalued and can be your most lucrative method of learning how to be a better manager for your staff. Join this interactive session where you’ll have a chance to learn and share your own perspective with people leaders from all over various industries and organizational levels. Be ready to talk, take notes, and grow. Be warned: you may have a sore throat by the end of this session!

Vulnerability in software translates as a security flaw or a weakness in code that can be exploited by a hacker. It is no surprise that engineers can sometimes take this definition and apply it to life and vulnerability becomes a sign of weakness. In this talk Niyati will redefine vulnerability and highlight its role in human connection as she draws on her lived experience. She will share the ripple effects of vulnerability and showcase how you too can win with vulnerability.

Working as an engineer and thinking about starting a family can be overwhelming. The stress increases when things don’t go according to plan and many seeking to build a family are faced with infertility which is more common than most realize. This panel will address the often not talked about enough issues one faces when dealing with infertility while working as an engineer. Panelists will discuss balancing doctors appointments with work, when and/or if to tell boss/coworkers, dealing with the emotions and stress and other topics around working while struggling to start a family.

When most people think about the rail industry, they immediately think of a train engineer, wearing his pin-striped hat. They certainly don’t think of the groundbreaking technological advancements, the sustainability of the movement of goods and people or the changing face of the industry. In truth, the foundation of rail is rooted in a predominantly male workforce wielding sledgehammers and stoking coal fueled engines, but that’s not today’s rail industry. This session will share thoughts from the women who are leading the revolution of an almost 200-year-old industry, transforming it with state-of-the-art technology partnered with admirable sustainability goals. Rail companies are at the precipice of monumental change as they drive to improved environmental impact and a more diverse workforce. These women have been on the rail journey for many years and will provide insight into why female engineers are needed to lead the rail industry into the next generation.

Our names are the connection to our heritage, our ancestors, and our identities, but often we shrink ourselves to assimilate to western norms. For many people of color, first interactions are stressful: should we pronounce our name the ethnic way, or go about making it easier for other people? Are their mistakes even worth correcting? Or should we just carry on with our day? From simply giving a pseudo-name at Starbucks when ordering your daily coffee to change the name on a resume with the hopes of a better chance of hiring, many BIPOC community members feel the pressure to accommodate. In this session, we will explore the complex relationships many historically-excluded individuals share with their names and the experiences felt by many.

Not sure what kind of industry job you want right after college? Then a rotational program might be for you! Rotational programs have become increasingly common across all industries. They give recent graduates the opportunity to explore different roles, and oftentimes different locations, within a company over a short period of time. It can be daunting to be thrown into many new situations and positions as a new hire but also incredibly rewarding and beneficial to gain key skills early in your career. Hear insight from three recent graduates in different engineering rotational programs about the realities of these programs, how to choose one that best suits you, and tips for successfully navigating your first role, whatever that may be.

According to UN General Assembly President Maria Espinoza, we only have a decade left to prevent irreversible damage from climate change. Studies show that disadvantaged communities are often at the forefront of these consequences; impacts such as localized air pollution can cause lung damage and heart disease. The U.S. has established decarbonization goals to combat this; legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and the Justice 40 Initiative will pour $7 Billion in tax credits across the nation to electrify trucks and buses, while ensuring that 40% of the overall incentives serve the most critically disadvantaged first. In this session, attendees will learn about how public and private partnerships collaborate at the forefront of these issues and their approach toward the decisions involved in electrifying the U.S., including how transportation electrification will help save lives, how the most impact can be made, and how equity and justice help shape this conversation.

Even though you could be an expert in your field, it is practically impossible to make a stellar career in tech without learning and practicing the art of negotiation. From proposing an increase in your salary (including promotion or role change) to pushing back on a mandatory “Return To Office” guidance to working a deal to sell your company or just protecting your time from endless meetings, negotiation is a balancing act to ensure your interest wins without burning the bridges. It is an opportunity to understand and stretch the boundaries. In this session, we will explore building blocks of successful negotiations attuned to the challenges of women in technology including the phases and framework to base your strategy on. We will also talk about the groundwork for preparation including the significance of “No,” holding your boundaries, self-evaluations, mastering delivery, body language, and using your personality traits to your advantage.

Whether we want to finish that 5k in under 30 minutes, take a bigger part in our monetary investments, or get that next promotion. We all have dreams and goals that we aspire to. There is something that we want to achieve, and we set goals to help us get there. BIG goals require some risk – they require some resource, or discomfort that we are not accustomed to; and we automatically fall into a risk-reward analysis, and we ask ourselves if it is worth the risk. This session begin by setting you on your goal path with confidence and enthusiasm. We will then address techniques to reframe obstacles into opportunities, and methods to visualize how focusing on mistakes holds you back from your success. Finally we will celebrate our victories and start our journey to tackling those BIG goals in our personal and professional lives.

Starting your career as a young college graduate is daunting, especially in today’s virtual world. New employees struggle to feel connected and work collaboratively, especially with more established colleagues. With the line between work life and home life blurring, eagerness to prove yourself by working longer hours can lead to burnout. And now that it’s more challenging to make connections at work, where are you supposed to go for advice? Alex and Marina have been working in a hybrid environment since 2020, and in the past year have both moved into “location free” roles, so they’ve spent quite some time figuring it all out! They want to share their perspective and some key pieces of advice to survive your first years in a full-time virtual job without becoming a Zoombie.

Every system has multiple components. Sometimes there’s no hardware, other times there’s no software, but there’s always people. Human Systems Integration (HSI) is an interdisciplinary technical approach to developing and sustaining systems, focusing on the interfaces between humans and modern technical systems. HSI provides the tools and techniques to understand the people part of the solution and aims to optimize system performance. In this session, you will get a practical introduction to Human Systems Integration and the various human-centered domains within the ever-evolving discipline. We will also discuss the growing need for Human Systems Integration and how it differs from often interchanged disciplines like Human Centered Design, Human Factors Engineering, or Human-Computer Interaction.

What exactly are non-promotable tasks? Non-promotable tasks are those that benefit the organization but don’t contribute to an employee’s career advancement. So you may ask well “Why should I say no if it benefits the organization?”. Well, these tasks may include planning a holiday party or serving on a low-level committee. Studies have found that women are 48% more likely to say yes when asked or even volunteer for these tasks. Also, if there was no volunteer, then women received 44% more requests than men to take on these tasks. Women will continue to progress more slowly if they hold a portfolio of non-promotable tasks. Tune into this session to learn how to say “no” and improve your career trajectory.

This snap session will focus on the first-generation Latina-American experience in engineering from community college through thriving in corporate America. Learn about the cultural struggles of pursuing a degree in a male-dominated industry while being told, “eso no es para las mujeres.” Being the jefas that we are, we are constantly dismantling the machismo culture just by being engineers. Making the transition from college into the workforce has it’s own struggle, you might find one or two other people that look like you, but I have some chisme that might help! With Latinas making up only 2% of the engineering workforce, we might sometimes feel like the Selenas of engineering, which we are! Join me in celebrating the intersectionality of all Latinas/Latinxs in engineering and experiencing all the Bidi Bidi Bom Boms along the way!

Money, kids, and values are some of the common topics we know are important to discuss with future partners, but there is one that usually doesn’t make the list at all: career aspirations. Career success is something we all aspire to, but those dreams and aspirations usually doesn’t get talked about in great detail prior to marriage or commitment. Join us for an open and frank conversation about how our partner can help or hinder our career success, how we define that success, and how to be better prepared for this conversation throughout your relationship.

When medical emergencies happen, there is often a disconnect between the individual who experiences the crisis and the company responding to the temporary loss of an employee. In this session, the presenter will share her own story of having two children be admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) and the challenges of returning to work with a special needs child. The session will include examples of how managers and colleagues can help support employees through medical crises and an assessment of the typical options available to employees facing family emergencies.

With ~79% of global companies developing hybrid work models, there is a need to create a sense of belonging for employees. Companies are investing resources to implement ways to ensure their employees feel included, whether it is through recognition programs or involving employees in critical decision-making. But how much are employees investing in their own future? Finding your sense of belonging in the workplace can be critical to launching or ending your career. The way to practice a culture of belonging is through allyship: developing and nurturing your relationships with your colleagues, managers, and mentors. In this session, attendees will learn the importance of building a team of advocates. They will be provided the tools to pave their career path to cultivate a sense of belonging and influence their team to practice the culture of allyship.

Have you ever wondered how much the hotel you stayed at for this conference contributes to your carbon footprint? In this session, we dive into the real climate impact of the buildings we occupy every day. The built environment is responsible for 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainable building design requires meeting the needs of occupants, the community, and the planet. In this session, we will share concerns for the impact of existing buildings and how to improve them and provide insight into what the next generation of buildings will require to significantly reduce emissions. We will discuss leading edge technology in heating and cooling systems, building envelopes, and electrification. This session is intended to start from ground zero and allow everyone to gain a deeper understanding of sustainable practices in the built environment.

We have all had to work with challenging people on our projects—those who are too aggressive or too passive, condescending, argumentative, or simply do not have the skills required to get the job done effectively. They can be on our own teams or on teams we collaborate with. They can put our projects at risk, adversely impact the value of our work, erode our self-confidence, and hurt our morale. Using a series of concrete case studies and anecdotes focused on system development in the homeland security field, we explore how both a system engineer and a manager have faced all of these challenges and what we have done both individually and in partnership to overcome them. We address committing to continuous professional development so our skills are undeniable; taking strategic leadership and welcoming accountability; communicating clearly; adapting our own working styles; and the importance of providing mutual support.

Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs) often serve as “back-up schools” for candidates on the academic job market. This workshop explores benefits of faculty positions at PUIs and how PUIs create a more equitable STEM education/workforce. Interactive components introduce participants to strategies for developing successful applications, preparing for interviews, and pre-/post-tenure careers at PUIs. Session presenters bring a range of knowledge and perspectives based on their varied educational and career experiences, institutional affiliations, race/ethnicity, age, and gender. This interactive session includes an interplay of several different activities that engage participants, with session facilitators briefly sharing their experiences/insights, large group discussions and Q&A. In addition, participants will be introduced to the California State University Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program (CDIP). CDIP prepares promising doctoral students for faculty positions by providing financial support, mentorship by faculty and professional development and grant resources.

NASA’s Artemis program seeks to establish sustained human presence on the moon and enable deep space exploration. Following the recent success of the Artemis I mission, this session highlights the valuable contributions from women engineers toward building the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket—the world’s most powerful rocket that will land the first woman and person of color on the moon. While women have been historically underrepresented in the space industry, they now play key roles in shaping the future of space exploration. This panel consists of engineering leaders at different career stages, each of whom will discuss their career path and responsibilities under the SLS program. Panelists will describe their experiences in fostering teamwork and engineering ethics to overcome challenges and, ultimately, ensure a successful mission.

Curious what opportunities exist for you outside the technical career path? An engineering degree is a door into almost any career pivot. Looking beyond engineering can provide fulfilling options that support both individual development and key business results. Your engineering background provides the foundation for a variety of opportunities outside of technical roles by combining your engineering skills and business acumen developed through engineering education and career experiences. Our panelists have real world experience transitioning from traditional engineering fields to cross-functional business roles mid-career. They will share the wide range of pivot options available, how their engineering backgrounds prepared them for those cross-functional roles, what experiences prepared them to make the transition, and why they sought to expand their careers beyond traditional engineering. Attendees will walk away with tangible next steps they can action during and after WE23 to explore these career paths.

At NASA, GE Aerospace, and Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing company, women engineers are helping develop the future of more electric and hybrid electric flight. Pioneering new aviation technology and exploring the science behind it comes with its own unique set of challenges. Navigating careers in a male dominated field as the aviation industry transitions to a period of innovation for more sustainable flight that also comes with obstacles these women are working together to overcome. Join this panel discussion to learn more.

It is important as a leader to ask questions and give answers, but more importantly it is crucial to know when the right time is to be asking vs. answering. Most of us have been trained to give the answer. Think about how you were rewarded in school. Most of us are also concerned about looking foolish for asking questions. In this session we will work on establishing a growth mindset to shift from “I don’t know this” to “I don’t know this yet,” discuss balancing asking vs. answering, as well as identifying different types of questions to ask.

Growing up as a second-generation Asian American woman, I didn’t know I was and would continue to be trapped between two worlds: one that is deeply rooted in struggle and another that is growing in privilege. Second-generation immigrants in the United States are individuals born and raised in the United States who have at least one foreign born parent. Despite the unique challenges second-generation immigrants face, they time and time again spearhead industries including those in STEM. Whether that is due to passion, influence, or sheer survival, second-generation immigrants have and continue to play a significant role in STEM. It is this unique perspective that drives so many to pursue a career in STEM and navigate that world while staying true to who we are.

Leveraging one’s professional network is a key career skill that can help achieve both tactical and strategic career goals. Most industry leaders are highly skilled in network leveraging. Leveraging requires the engagement of others for a specific purpose which is different from just establishing a friendship. Women have outstanding relationship skills and can easily build a large network but can be less skilled in the art of leveraging that network. This session will emphasize the importance and benefits of leveraging, delve into the main impediments that hold people back and provide solutions for overcoming those. Using real workplace re-enactments, participants will learn how to set up mutually beneficial professional relationships that will result in easier and more effective leveraging opportunities. The techniques and tools provided will empower participants to leverage like a leader at all phases of their careers.

With rapid growth in world population and continuous loss of agricultural land due to urbanization, there is urgent need for increased agricultural productivity, along with reduced cost, optimal use of resources, and reduced impact on our environment. This session will provide some inspiring examples of how women researchers, entrepreneurs and inventors have come up with solutions for these problems through tech solutions. It will give an exciting look at few patents, research papers, and innovations done by women across the world in the areas of precision agriculture technology and how these tech solutions have the potential to empower women farmers. These examples demonstrate the influence of female innovations in the integration of agriculture and technology, the challenges faced, and the career opportunities young women can find in this area.

Boomers, Millennials, Gen Z….Oh my! Workplaces, organizations, and academia are comprised of people from every generation from Traditionalists to Gen Z. Although everyone is working towards the same professional goals, each group approaches problems and communicates needs in differing ways. In this session, we will discuss how being aware of different generational values and communication styles can lead to stronger teams in the workplace. At the end of this chat, attendees will have a better understanding of today’s diverse group of generational workers, be able to recognize generational influences, and leverage these differences for amazing outcomes.

Construction is a dynamic field that involves problem solving and quick decision making skills. In this session, we will review how to successfully execute the three major constraints that each project may bring, which are the scope, schedule, and budget. We will discuss the fun facts about construction and also the challenging aspects that every project may bring. This session will also help you identify issues and think of creative ways to find solutions. We’ll also discuss how a little bit of pixie dust can help make any construction project magical!

No matter what cell phone you own, you might have noticed “LTE” next to your service bars. This acronym stands for Long Term Evolution, which is the technology that connects your cell phone to the world. This technology is not only deployed by public carriers such as AT&T or Verizon, but it can also be harnessed by power utilities to build robust networks. For example, San Diego Gas and Electric is building out their own private LTE network in remote areas to mitigate fallen power lines from causing destructive wildfires. In this session, we’ll explain why utility clients can benefit from building and owning their own private networks, how utilities determine the best strategies to interconnect their locations, and why 4G-LTE can trump 5G.

College students and young professionals are overwhelmed. 59% of college students feel unprepared to enter the workforce and nearly half the student population are the first in their family to attend college – all in a market where 85% of jobs are being filled via networking. To make matters worse, they’re being fed the falsehood that everyone is getting job offers and promotions through the highlight reels on social media. Our session will introduce the concept of building and managing a Personal Advisory Board. We’ll start with debunking the myth of being self-made by providing high-profile examples of successful individuals’ support teams, then provide detailed guidance on how to build and effectively manage your own personal advisory board to help on your personal and professional journeys. We’ll also include a fun “building your dream board” exercise to get you thinking about what roles would benefit you.

Today, we live in a world where most products are designed for the majority population. What if we could design our future for all, without sacrificing novelty or the bottom line? In this session, participants will learn principles and methods of inclusive and human-centered design, review real-world examples of successful inclusive design in action, and learn how to leverage inclusive design methods with take-home models and frameworks that can be applied to the future of their work and our world.

Entering industry, it’s important to know if your prospective employer invests in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEI&B). Most companies have a DEI&B Statement, but how can you know if their workplace is truly conducive to inclusion? In this session, we will be exploring how to evaluate companies based on these initiatives and an individual’s personal values. Specifically, we will be taking a look at anti-discrimination laws, internal DEI&B reports, and other resources such as the Human Rights Campaign Index and Bloomberg’s Gender Equality Index. Understanding this information will give attendees the capability to protect themselves from discrimination in the workplace, make informed career decisions, and give them the tools to leverage their power regarding DEI&B initiatives.

Increasing diversity in technical careers while maintaining historical white male leadership can cause conflict without understanding unconscious bias about race, gender, and age. This lack of understanding can create underlying tension that negatively affects engagement and effectiveness at work. The speakers will explain how they addressed this by creating a committee called Courageous Conversations to facilitate structured conversations on unconscious bias. These sessions were voluntary for those who were curious about how their unconscious biases influenced the way they interacted with their coworkers. These conversations created a safe venue for minorities to air their concerns, share their perspective, and be heard, while also allowing non-minorities to do the same. As a result, these conversations increased trust and improved work environments for those who participated. This session will walk through how the speakers created a safe space for colleagues to have a Courageous Conversation, and how you can do the same.