Women in engineering
Encyclopedia
USA
The percentage of female graduate students in engineering in 2001 was 20%. Doctoral degrees awarded to women in engineering increased from 11.6% to 17.6% of total degrees awarded between 1995 and 2004. The workforce remains as the area of highest under representation for women; only 11% of the engineering workforce in 2003 were women.Australia
Only 9.6% of engineers in Australia are women, and the rate of women in engineering degree courses has remained around 14% since the 1990s.Notable women in engineering
- Judith Resnik was a NASA astronaut, who held a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. After her death in the Space Shuttle Challenger accident, a IEEE Judith Resnik Award for space engineering was named in her honor.
- Barbara Johnson was a general engineering student who became a pioneer for women in the field of aerospace engineering by leading several teams of engineers at NASA and contributing to the field of aerospace engineering.
- Barbara McClintockBarbara McClintockBarbara McClintock , the 1983 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, was an American scientist and one of the world's most distinguished cytogeneticists. McClintock received her PhD in botany from Cornell University in 1927, where she was a leader in the development of maize cytogenetics...
was a notable contributor to the discipline now referred to as bioengineering. She was the first recipient of the MacAuthor Foundation Grant, and is a Nobel laureate. - Emily Warren RoeblingEmily Warren RoeblingEmily Warren Roebling was married to Washington Roebling, a civil engineer who was Chief Engineer during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge...
self-taught engineer who is recognized for her work in insuring the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Initiatives to promote engineering to women
- Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
- Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
- RobogalsRobogalsRobogals is an international student-run organisation that aims to substantially increase the number of young women pursuing engineering in their tertiary studies and careers. Its primary activity is fun, educational robotics workshops aimed at girls in primary and secondary school...
- Women in SET
- German Association of Women Engineers (dib e.V.)
See also
- Ecole Polytechnique massacreÉcole Polytechnique massacreThe École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, was a hate crime perpetrated on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Twenty-five-year-old Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi, who had changed his name to Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained...
in Montreal, where women were targeted by a mass murderer because they were female engineering students - List of prizes, medals, and awards for women in engineering
- Women in ComputingWomen in computingGlobal concerns about current and future roles of women in computing occupations gained more importance with the emerging information age. These concerns motivated public policy debates addressing gender equality as computer applications exerted increasing influence in society...
- Women in scienceWomen in scienceWomen have made contributions and sacrifices to science from the earliest times. Like many men in science, women have received little or no distinction for their work during their lifetimes. Science is generally and historically a male-dominated field, and evidence suggests that this is due to...
- Women in the workforceWomen in the workforceUntil modern industrialized times, legal and cultural practices, combined with the inertia of longstanding religious and educational traditions, had restricted women's entry and participation in the workforce. Economic dependency upon men, and consequently the poor socio-economic status of women...