Early-Career Women of Color Engineers on Navigating Mentorship and Career Transitions

This project will explore the professional development and career retention of women of color in engineering, a group significantly underrepresented in this field. Decisions made at the onset of an engineering career can profoundly influence one's professional trajectory. By understanding the experiences and mentorship that guide these women through their formative career years, this project aims to uncover strategies that support their success.

Using qualitative methods and narrative inquiry, the research will follow the stories of early-career women engineers of color, tracing their professional journeys and revealing the empowering strategies that enable them to navigate the cultural and professional challenges in engineering. This project aligns with NSF’s commitment to broadening participation in STEM fields by addressing the systemic barriers faced by women of color and promoting a more inclusive and diverse engineering workforce.

This project will focus on understanding the navigational capital and mentorship experiences of early-career women of color in engineering. The research will use qualitative methods, specifically narrative inquiry, involving multiple interviews and the restorying of participant data into narratives. These narratives will follow the professional journeys of the participants, highlighting the strategies they use to navigate the engineering workforce.

The project will also include interviews with mentors identified by the participants to illuminate the mentorship practices that support their development. The project’s goals are to identify how navigational capital is cultivated and employed, to understand the intersection of gender, race, and professional integration within engineering, and to offer new insights into the skills and self-determination leveraged by these women.

Expected outcomes include a detailed understanding of the professional formation of women of color in engineering, which will inform mentorship programs and policies aimed at increasing their retention and advancement in the field. This research will contribute to a more inclusive and dynamic engineering workforce capable of addressing complex global challenges.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.