Mizzou Engineering Pursuit of Excellence Keynote Address

I was honored to be asked to deliver the keynote address at the Mizzou Engineering Pursuit of Excellence banquet on November 29, 2018. I've decided to share it here. Thank you to the Mizzou Engineering Inclusivity Center and Dr. Tojan Rahhal (Assistant Dean for Inclusive Excellence & Strategic Initiatives) for this opportunity!

When I was growing up, I loved building elaborate structures from blocks, playing with train sets, and putting anything I could get my hands on under a microscope. By fourth grade, I hadn’t chosen engineering, but I did know that I wanted my future career to incorporate math and science.

I think I first started to understand the demographics of the engineering workforce in 7th grade, when I was one of four girls on my middle school’s Science Olympiad team. Five years later, I sat in my AP physics class every morning during 3rd hour. I had ended up in a small class of just 8 students, and I was the only girl. From there, I went on to major in chemical engineering here at Mizzou, where my graduating class was approximately 1/3 women, and had just a few African American students. I now work in the aerospace industry, where I am certainly in the minority as a woman engineer. In my first assignment out of college, I was one of two women in a group of 20 engineers.

Despite being in the minority as a woman engineer, my experience pursuing an engineering degree and career has been so fulfilling and rewarding. I was reflecting on these experiences and realized that there has been a common thread tying them all together, from my 7th grade Science Olympiad team until today. Throughout my education and career, someone has always worked to ensure that everyone was treated fairly and that I had the same opportunities as everyone else. I had supportive teachers throughout my K-12 education, who never dissuaded me from pursuing engineering, despite the difficult road that lay ahead and the fact that I was “different” than the stereotype of what many people imagine when they think of an engineer.

Let’s rewind 9 years into the past, when I was a freshman at Mizzou. I was fortunate to have an undergraduate advisor who wanted everyone to succeed and become an engineer. But I also knew that in order to graduate and become an engineer, I had to want this more than anything, and that was tested right away. I took organic chemistry 1 during the second semester of my freshman year. A few weeks in, I started to realize that this was not a field where my talents lay. I know now that my love of chemistry is concentrated in the fields that I can easily explain by using math, like electrochemistry and reaction kinetics. Meanwhile, organic chemistry had about 1 mathematical formula during the entire semester. Unfortunately, if I gave up on organic chemistry, I would also give up on my dream of becoming a chemical engineer. So I turned to the standbys of most engineering students – I studied in groups and became close friends with my classmates. I am proud to tell you that I scraped by with C’s both semesters, which were my first ever.

But that was just the first of many challenges in engineering school. I took principles of chemical engineering 1 during the first semester of my junior year. That class not only felt impossible, but was a prerequisite for almost every other class over the next two years, and was taught by my advisor. The material didn’t make sense. I was worried that I wouldn’t pass the class. It turned out that I wasn’t doing as badly as I thought, but I was still in danger of not making it to the next course. This was truly the only moment in college where I ever considered leaving engineering. But by this point, I had had an internship at Lexmark and loved it, and knew that I loved working as an engineer. I couldn’t let one class derail the career I had chosen at 15. So I studied like crazy. I passed. And I made it through.

As I mentioned, my experience in Mizzou Engineering was very positive. Thanks to my network of engineering friends, professors, and College of Engineering staff, there were very few moments when I felt as if I didn’t belong in engineering. But I will never forget a moment when someone made me question whether I belonged. After receiving an internship offer junior year, one of my friends suggested that I only received the offer because of my gender. It really stung, but I knew he was wrong. I had worked just as hard as anyone else, and deserved that internship as much as anyone else. It may feel like a competition now while you’re in school, but it’s important to support your friends and colleagues as they pursue their professional goals.

I joined the Society of Women Engineers just weeks into my freshman year, and it didn’t take long for SWE to become important in my life. Through SWE, I have developed a passion for K-12 STEM outreach, which all started at my first Mizzou SWE outreach event. We made gak in a tub and showed students how elastomers behave, and I began to understand the immense need for STEM outreach to students, parents, and teachers. My dad is an engineer, so my childhood was peppered with questions about boiling water at different altitudes, electricity, and car repairs. So it wasn’t much of a surprise that I would choose to become an engineer, after being raised by one. But I continued to wonder how someone without an engineering role model would find this path. It breaks my heart to know that there are so many people in this world who don’t know what an engineer is or does, or who opt out of STEM careers because they don’t see someone who they identify with. Since graduating, SWE has given me an outlet to continue using my passion for STEM outreach, through my involvement on SWE’s Outreach Committee and with SWE’s signature outreach events. I am so grateful to Mizzou SWE for igniting that fire.

As I interviewed for full-time jobs, I felt that it was indicative of the workplace culture if I asked a company about their commitment to STEM outreach and organizations like SWE, NSBE, and SHPE. Of course, I wanted to continue my involvement in SWE, but I also wanted to make sure that I was pursuing a career at a company that wanted to employ and develop someone like me. I’ve been at Boeing for more than five years full-time, and I am blown away by Boeing’s commitment to diversity & inclusion in STEM. I recently attended the Boeing – St. Louis Diversity & Inclusion Awards, where employee resource groups and individuals are recognized for their commitment to diversity and inclusion. Many Boeing – St. Louis employee resource groups were recognized, including groups supporting women in leadership, veterans, and different cultures.

Boeing consistently ranks as a top employer for veterans, and also earned perfect scores this year on the Human Rights’ Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index and last year’s Disability Equality Index. And those are just a handful of the accolades. Boeing has been a member of SWE’s Corporate Partnership Council for more than three decades, and more than 1,150 Boeing engineers are SWE members. Boeing is also a proud supporter of NSBE, and has been part of the NSBE Board of Corporate Affiliates since the organization was founded in 1975. Boeing has a strong presence at every industry and technical conference surrounding diversity & inclusion in engineering, from SWE, NSBE, and SHPE conferences, to Women of Color in Aviation and Women in Aviation. I see this commitment to diversity and inclusion at every level in Boeing. My management has always supported my pursuit of a technical career, and I feel so fortunate to be in my organization. So I encourage you – if moving onto a career or graduate school is in your future, ask the questions that will reveal whether you are entering a supportive environment.

I believe that we are all personally responsible to promote diversity and inclusion in engineering, and that it is easier than it may seem. I like to think of it with this anecdote, which was shared with me by another woman engineer:

It is important to have someone you can look up to in your career – a mentor you can learn from. We need someone who we can walk and partner with, who supports us and knows what we are going through, because they are in that stage of life as well. And in order to grow future generations, we need to engage with someone who we can reach back to, mentor, encourage, and bring along with us. I encourage you to think about who these people are in your life and career. Perhaps you haven’t met them yet. But my wish for you is that you make a personal commitment to making engineering a more diverse and inclusive place.