Siam News Blog: Understanding Engineering Curricula to Improve Diversity Within the Field

Our very own director here at the CBSR, Dr. Sharon Tettegah, was featured in a Siam News blog publication written by Lina Sorg about fostering diverse participation from women, people of color, and other underrepresented groups within the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Read a snippet of the article below and click the link to find the completed article for more information:

"Fostering diverse participation from women, people of color, and other underrepresented groups within the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an ongoing challenge (see Figure 1). Despite financial resources and funded recruitment efforts, most engineering programs continue to suffer from a lack of representation. While previous studies have examined student preparedness or methods of instruction, some researchers believe that a lack of accessibility in engineering criteria might be responsible for low retention. During a minisymposium at the 2021 SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, which took place virtually this week, Sharon Tettegah of the University of California, Santa Barbara presented a set of mathematical models that examine the various characteristics of engineering curricula. She utilized surveys, focus groups, and web crawling techniques to establish a typology of content and better understand students’ preferences and expectations for education. “We want to enhance diversity across the board, within our group, and also outside our group,” Tettegah said."

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