Racial and gendered experiences that dissuade a career in the professoriate

Abstract

Faculty members play a multi-faceted role in the engineering profession. They help to discover, promote, and disseminate advancements in technology, and they engage in capacity-building by training a future workforce of engineers. Yet, many potential faculty members are dissuaded from academia. This paper describes findings from both interviews and focus groups of 60 Black engineering Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars, which were conducted during our study to understand their career decision-making process. Their racial and gendered experiences impact their desire and choice to pursue an academic career.