Women in Mechanical Engineering: A Departmental Effort to Improve Recruitment, Retention, and Engagement of Women Students

Sriram Sundararajan; Theodore J. Heindel; Baskar Ganapathysubramanian; Shankar Subramaniam

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Conference: 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Publication Date: June 10, 2012
Start Date: June 10, 2012
End Date: June 13, 2012
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Retention of Women Students
Tagged Division: Women in Engineering
Page Count: 15
Page Numbers: 25.1483.1 - 25.1483.15
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--22240
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/22240
Download Count: 753

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Sriram Sundararajan Iowa State University

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Sriram Sundararajan is an Associate Professor of mechanical engineering at Iowa State University. He is currently the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Programs, and he oversees curricular and program matters, including assessment and continuous improvement efforts. His research areas encompass scanning probe microscopy, multiscale tribology (friction, lubrication and wear), and surface engineering. More recently, he has focused on atom scale mapping of thin film material systems using 3D-atom probe microscopy. He has authored more than 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings and two invited book chapters. He serves on the conference committee for the International Conference on Wear of Materials and has been recognized for his accomplishments with the Young Engineering Faculty Research Award and Early Achievement in Teaching Award at Iowa State University. He received his B.E. degree in mechanical engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (India), followed by M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. He is a member of ASEE, ASME, and ASM.

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Shankar Subramaniam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University. He received his B.Tech. in aeronautical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (Mumbai) in 1988 and is a recipient of the President’s Silver Medal. He earned his Ph.D. at Cornell University, subsequent to an M.S. in aerospace engineering at the University of Notre Dame, USA. After his Ph.D., he spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the Theoretical Division’s Fluid Dynamics Group. Prior to joining the ISU faculty in 2002, Subramaniam was an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University. He is a recipient of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Principal Investigator award. His areas of expertise are in theory, modeling and simulation of multiphase flows (including sprays, particle-laden flows, colloids, and granular mixtures), turbulence, mixing, and reacting flows. His current research concerns hierarchical coarse-graining approaches, mesoscale models of colloidal aggregation, and direct numerical simulation of gas-solid flows.

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Abstract

Women in Mechanical Engineering: a departmental effort to improve recruitment, retention and engagement of women studentsThe Mechanical Engineering department at Iowa State University started the ‘Women inMechanical Engineering’ (WiME) program 3 years ago. WiME is a student run, facultymoderated, and department funded program with a three pronged approach to enhance womenparticipation in mechanical engineering – retention, outreach, and recruitment. WiME organizesvarious social and professional development activities that are intended to • provide a forum for women to socially interact with faculty and their peers; • provide students with women role models in engineering and academic professionals thereby helping to develop and sustain a network of professional colleagues and; • leverage the interests of the WiME group to undertake outreach to local middle- and high-schools, thus creating a sustainable group.Several specific events and activities include (a) the “Chat-with-ME” series where students areprovided an opportunity to interact with a successful women mechanical engineer in a veryinformal setting. This provides an opportunity to ask questions (inspirations, approaches,challenges faced,) regarding managing a productive academic career and understanding theformal (and informal/implicit) values, rules and operating procedures in mechanical engineeringpractice; (b) social events like picnics, bowling and ‘Ice-cream socials’ where the womenstudents can interact with each other and ME faculty; (c) professional development events likemock interview and interview walk-up sessions before career fairs and more recently; (d)“efficient energy use” outreach sessions to local middle schools in collaboration with industrialpartners. Students have pointed to the social interaction opportunities as a major attraction of theprogram. The department has also set up WiME scholarships to prospective high school studentsto enhance recruitment. Through this successful program the women enrollment in the MEprogram has increased from 7.0% to 10%.

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Sundararajan, S., & Heindel, T. J., & Ganapathysubramanian, B., & Subramaniam, S. (2012, June), Women in Mechanical Engineering: A Departmental Effort to Improve Recruitment, Retention, and Engagement of Women Students Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--22240

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -            Women in Mechanical Engineering: a departmental effort to            improve recruitment, retention and engagement of women                                    studentsThe Mechanical Engineering department at Iowa State University started the ‘Women inMechanical Engineering’ (WiME) program 3 years ago. WiME is a student run, facultymoderated, and department funded program with a three pronged approach to enhance womenparticipation in mechanical engineering – retention, outreach, and recruitment. WiME organizesvarious social and professional development activities that are intended to    • provide a forum for women to socially interact with faculty and their peers;    • provide students with women role models in engineering and academic professionals        thereby helping to develop and sustain a network of professional colleagues and;    • leverage the interests of the WiME group to undertake outreach to local middle- and        high-schools, thus creating a sustainable group.Several specific events and activities include (a) the “Chat-with-ME” series where students areprovided an opportunity to interact with a successful women mechanical engineer in a veryinformal setting. This provides an opportunity to ask questions (inspirations, approaches,challenges faced,) regarding managing a productive academic career and understanding theformal (and informal/implicit) values, rules and operating procedures in mechanical engineeringpractice; (b) social events like picnics, bowling and ‘Ice-cream socials’ where the womenstudents can interact with each other and ME faculty; (c) professional development events likemock interview and interview walk-up sessions before career fairs and more recently; (d)“efficient energy use” outreach sessions to local middle schools in collaboration with industrialpartners. Students have pointed to the social interaction opportunities as a major attraction of theprogram. The department has also set up WiME scholarships to prospective high school studentsto enhance recruitment. Through this successful program the women enrollment in the MEprogram has increased from 7.0% to 10%.
AU  - Sriram Sundararajan
AU  - Theodore J. Heindel
AU  - Baskar Ganapathysubramanian
AU  - Shankar Subramaniam
CY  - San Antonio, Texas
DA  - 2012/06/10
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Women in Mechanical Engineering: A Departmental Effort to Improve Recruitment, Retention, and Engagement of Women Students
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/22240
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--22240
ER  -