 Good morning and welcome to our session today's session entitled strategies for diversifying the engineering workforce will focus on understanding the large scale impact of global development engineering work on addressing the lack of underrepresentation of certain identity groups and engineering. My name is Dr. Ashley Hutterson and I'm the director of engineering education outreach and will serve as your moderator for this dynamic panel today. A growing number of engineering students are seeking pathways to respond to global challenges. Following the emergence of engineers without borders USA in 2001 which engage students and professionals in extracurricular and volunteer work and developing communities the future engineering workforce is increasingly demanding opportunities to apply engineering skills for social and economic development. Universities are responding to inspiring that demand through new degree requirements and accreditors of engineering degree programs such as ABET in the United States have even mandated engineering programs to offer education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global economic environmental and social context. The results have been a notable increase in socially engaged humanitarian and global development learning opportunities for engineering students. These efforts and similar ones have also laid a foundation for addressing the lack of diversity in engineering as programs focus on applying engineering skills for social and economic development are reporting an average 50% or higher more female participation. This increase in participation is critical as currently African Americans and Hispanics make up only five and 6.2% of the engineering workforce and women are similarly under underrepresented making up just 13.4% of engineering professionals. So the question we have to ask is could the integration of humanitarianism into engineering education be a vehicle to increase the number of women, African Americans, Hispanic American Indians and Alaska Natives in engineering? Our panel today is focused on highlighting just that our panel today is comprised of three amazing women who are all working across various areas of global engineering development. So before I turn it over to our first speaker, I would like to share some housekeeping rules. First, this session is being recorded as such your engagement may be recorded as well. So please be mindful of this. The best way to engage with our speakers and other attendees will be to raise your hands and use the icon on the top right side of the event window. If the speaker has time, they may also address your question and ask if you want to ask your question with video and audio. You can also use the chat to communicate with other attendees and speakers to submit questions specifically directed at speakers using the Q&A function. Lastly, we recognize ethnicity and gender are not the only areas of diversity that impact the engineering field. Sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, people with disabilities, geographical locations, religion, and the intersection of these identities all warrant exploration in the diversity space. But the focus of this session, we may not cover all of these areas, but we do acknowledge that work around their impact is equally important. Now, without further ado, I will turn it over to Dr. Dominique Carter to provide more background on the DEI work in a global context. Thank you so much, Dr. Hudson. And so with that, I will share my screen and get started. Can you all indicate if you can see this? Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. So as Dr. Hudson said, I will be speaking through data on diversifying the engineering workforce for a new global era. So as Dr. Hudson said, my name is Dr. Dominique Carter. I currently serve as an agricultural science advisor for the office of the chief scientist in the office of the secretary for the United States Department of Agriculture. For today's topic, I am going to briefly cover a few items focusing on data. I first would like to discuss the globalization of science and engineering as it currently stands, followed by a brief summary of engineering by the numbers, looking more closely at the engineering labor force in the United States. I then plan to conclude with discussing opportunities to develop a diverse global engineering workforce. So I'd like to begin all of my talks or presentations with the quote, and I thought that this quote was awesome. Some of my scientist friends may be upset with me, but it says that the engineer has been and is a maker of history. And for that to continue to be so, we need the broadest participation of a global and diverse engineering workforce. Science and engineering research is increasingly international and interdependent. This is best demonstrated by the increased number of co authorship of scientific and engineering publications across multiple countries. This demonstrates that we are amid a major paradigm shift from a primarily Western dominated science economy to a multipolar science ecosystem. This creates both challenges and opportunities for developed countries and emerging markets. Resultantly, building global science and engineering capacity has never been more critical. Opportunities for globalization with regards to the STEM research enterprise include a larger pool of researchers for cross border scientific cooperation and utilization of major foreign research facilities, which can contribute to innovation and technology overall. And so some challenges that this increased globalization of the STEM research enterprise can include is US competitiveness in high technology areas and its position in the world as a global leader in science and technology. On the converse, it can present opportunities for developing countries with lower R&D expenditures to become emerging leaders in specific science and engineering fields. And so with that, let's take a deeper dive into the US engineering workforce looking by the numbers. For the second time, I have included a small number of figures to demonstrate the need of diversifying the STEM workforce, focusing on engineering. The data presented here is from the science and engineering labor force section of the 2020 US science and engineering indicators report. Additionally, some data is part of a special report issued by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, which are the authors of the aforementioned report called Women Minorities and Persons of Disabilities in Science and Engineering. This is the inaugural year of this report. And so I look forward to seeing how these number changed in the future. For today's discussion, underrepresented minorities are defined as Blacks or African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos and American Indians or Alaskan Natives. And they are referred to as underrepresented in science and engineering because their representation in science and engineering and education and employment is smaller than their representation in the US population overall. So let's begin with looking at the percentage of women and underrepresented minorities in the science and engineering workforce compared to their overall percentage of the US population. Broadly speaking, the number of women in science and engineering occupations or with science and engineering bachelor's levels degrees has doubled over the past two decades. In 2017, they were underrepresented in science and engineering, which for the rest of this talk I will refer to as S&E occupations by 29% or at 29% and S&E degrees at 40% relative to their proportion of the US residential population age 21 and older of 52%. Similarly, the numbers of Blacks, Hispanics and American Indians or Alaskan Natives with their highest degree in S&E collectively increased nearly four fold since 1993. However, they are still underrepresented in S&E occupations by 13% and with attaining 16% of overall S&E degrees relative to their proportion of the US residential population of 28%. Engineering, as we all know, is a field with one of the lowest shares of female degree recipients. Although the number of women receiving engineering degrees at all levels has increased over the past two decades, women's shares of degrees has increased only slightly at the bachelor's and master's level from 18 to 21% and 18 to 25% respectively over the past two decades. Although the number of women receiving engineering doctoral degrees is small, it is an overall increase in share from 12% to 24% since 1997. So we can see that the trend is moving in the direction we would like it to see with broader participation of women in the engineering field, but there's still a lot of more work to be done. Now, stratifying science and engineering degrees by race and ethnicity, we see about 56% of bachelor's degrees in S&E fields were awarded to whites in 2016. All three groups of underrepresented minorities, including people that identify as Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Native American or Pacific Islander, earned a larger share of bachelor's degrees in science and engineering in 2016. Hispanics or Latinos earned 13.5% of science and 10% of engineering degrees, Black or African American students, 9% and four respectively in American Indians or Alaskan Natives, 0.5 and 0.3% respectively. Now let's look into employment status of scientists and engineers by ethnicity and race for 2017. So while I just mentioned whites were awarded 56% of overall S&E bachelor's degrees in 2016, almost 70% of scientists and engineers employed full time were white. The opposite trend is seen among underrepresented minority groups. And I just want to make a note that the white scientists and engineers that are demonstrated in this figure as a larger share of those not employed or not looking for work has been noted to be due to retirement. So what does all of this mean? While it is encouraging to see an increasing trend among representation of women and under represented minorities across STEM fields, including engineering, we need strategies to ensure the broadest global participation in the STEM enterprise to address the global challenges of today and tomorrow. So one unique perspective that likely contributes to a less diverse STEM workforce is one that has been described in a recent report by the New York Academy of Sciences called the Global STEM Paradox. The STEM Paradox describes the crippling shortage of STEM professionals in most countries around the world, threatening to undermine economic growth and hold back the scientific advances needed to meet the world's most urgent challenges. It is present across developed and emerging nations and solving it is a truly global challenge. A new international cross sector discourse will therefore be essential to achieve the full potential of STEM talent for human and global development. Each country must draw on their elements that others have already been proven to be successful in order to assemble its own ecosystem. At the same time, governments, businesses and schools around the world must find a shared vision to align their efforts in mutually reinforcing ways and mechanisms. So let's discuss some global opportunities to address these challenges and ultimately diverse the engineering workforce. We often see developing countries that want to develop science and technology sectors but may not have economic strategies that are connected. Therefore, governments must pursue a comprehensive STEM policy agenda that incentivizes companies to invest in research and innovation. Such an agenda can create new job opportunities for STEM graduates, grow the economy and accelerate scientific progress. A strong STEM ecosystem depends on an interdisciplinary education system that is closely aligned with workforce needs. So some tactics or considerations to achieve this include identifying and investing in priority STEM industries most relevant to national competitive advantage for every country. Developing a robust STEM strategy with policies that support priority industries through seed funding, IP protection and research. Evaluating and refining the STEM strategy and approach in line with evolving national and regional needs. Connecting with the global community to identify, share and strengthen breast practices. Another opinion is that the STEM pipeline is too theoretical and didactic and that this results in poorly trained workers match with what global employers are looking for. So you may see through efforts of the National Science Foundation and other government science bodies alike that there is now an increased interest in understanding, analyzing and supporting the skilled technical workforce which has been defined as individuals who have received a minimum of a high school education and perhaps even attained a certificate or associates in some skilled area that is considered an overall STEM area. So learning how to better support people in that. And so some considerations to achieve this include aligning educational curricula and skill development with local employer needs. Fostering robust vocational and technical training career pathways across skill levels. Building a system of internship, apprenticeship and mentoring opportunities. Offering untraditional education opportunities to reinforce in school curricula and increasing access to technology that can deliver innovative educational programs. Finally an aspiring STEM culture places value on the importance of STEM and what it brings to the community. Families and individuals appreciate how essential all STEM pathways are to field. And the general public has a basic understanding of STEM and the value of a diverse STEM workforce. And so some considerations for fostering and inspiring STEM culture include promoting STEM heroes and elevating the importance of STEM professionals at home in school and in the media. One initiative that was recently launched by AAAS to highlight women in STEM include the if then ambassador program which does just that. Another consideration is to support the development of an engagement in fun interactive recreational STEM activities developing public education initiatives that break down stereotypes about technical and vocational training and investing in STEM teaching so that it becomes more attractive career pathway. Attracting diverse demographics into STEM through mentorship and redefining STEM in the workplace. So with that I'll take any questions. I am happy also to highlight during our discussion period some programs at my agency and other federal agencies that support global development particularly focusing on building international and U.S. students in science and engineering research. So with that I'll take questions. Stop sharing my screen now. Thank you all for your attention. Thank you Dr. Carter. We're actually going to face the questions for the end of the session. So now we're going to turn it over to Dr. Esther Umboyo to provide us with a faculty perspective as it relates to the impact of her work. Thank you very much. Thank you also to the organizers of the conference engineering for change and also the American Society for Mechanical Engineering. I'm going to reflect for a few minutes on some of the things that got me to where I am today just for maybe one or two minutes then share some reasons why I do what it is that I do and then give some examples of things which I see missing in the formal education system for people in my profession which is design and construction of buildings and then tie up everything at the very end with an example of how engineering for development engineering for developing communities can fill this void. Next slide please. So my faculty journey actually started with me doing a PhD in civil and building engineering. My research topic was artificial intelligence. Nothing to do with low income economy economy is nothing to do with developing countries and I remember when I got hired at the University of Florida one of my colleagues who was a full professor at that time you know poked me and asked me have you ever thought about creating educational research experiences for students in African countries and I said no my PhD and my research has been artificial intelligence. I don't see how to reconcile this with developing countries and then they reminded me you are born in Nairobi Kenya so you can definitely do this. There's something wrong with our education system that's why I'm sharing this that even though I was born in a developing country I never really saw the connection between the things I was learning and as an undergraduate student master student and even PhD students somebody had to point out and call it out and tell me you can do this and I'm like of course I can do this. So the slide that you're looking at is a picture from 2014 I've been traveling with students to Kenya and Tanzania since 2008 when that encouragement was given to me and this picture that you're looking at these are three students from University of Nairobi. I got fortunate that in addition to traveling with students from the US I also mentored some students from the University of Nairobi. What you're looking at on your right is what it's a section of what used to be the Nairobi Yaching Club and as you can see there's no water and the students here the questions which we were discussing were related to how the infrastructure the growth of the infrastructure is conflicting with the natural ecosystem and they turned around and asked me Dr. Obonu how comes we don't learn these things in class? How comes everything that we are being taught in engineering and architecture is all based on this very western high income concept of the world and that's not how the world works. This was my experience when I was in school this is still the experience. We are only having these conversations because we've stepped outside of the formal curriculum and as I said I'm thankful that I'm benefiting from this. I'm thankful for the few students who are benefiting from this but we can definitely do better. In these programs that I've been doing and my colleagues are also doing we have no problem with diversity. I have never had to look at the composition of the group and thought that I needed to do something because usually 40 percent to 60 percent are students from underrepresented groups. In fact in one outreach activity we had to do something because the white male candidates were just not there at all and we said diversity means everybody needs to be there but if everybody means excluding the white people the white male students who dominate my profession then we're also not doing something right but the point is when we start connecting engineering with the things that are around us we attract people from underrepresented groups very easily. Next slide please. Next slide. Questions like this made me wonder how do we define our engineering disciplines? I'm going to use architectural engineering which is one of the units which I'm affiliated with so I will not read the whole thing but it uses words such as it deals with the technological aspects and multi-disciplinary approach and then everything else is about buildings. Then there's a very last statement at the very end where they say that architectural engineering is well poised to handle. When they graduate they're at the forefront of addressing several major challenges of the 21st century. Again this is my profession so let's point the next slide. Let's point about this. Are we really graduating students who are at the forefront of addressing the major challenges of the society? As we transition to the next slide I will start talking about it. I picked three that the built environment can contribute to in terms of either making the problem worse or addressing the issues global warming. Buildings account for 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions through the energy that's used in the buildings and also through the embodied energy. So from a technical perspective there's something that we are contributing to the problem and we should also be in a position to address the problem. We know that the indoor environment is causing all sorts of health issues both in the U.S. and other parts of the world. Big numbers, 339 million people have asthma. A lot of these can be linked either to the building, either through the building causing it or making worse the situation. A big bulk of this problem is in the developing country. Next slide please. But it's also a problem in the U.S. in Pittsburgh, in Philadelphia and very many other places. Do we really know how to solve these problems through the curriculum, the formal curriculum that we teach? Do we know that if we reduce the global, if we limit the global warming to two degrees we know about the Paris Agreement. If we do this we can address some of this issue. We know that if we use the technology that exists to provide universal access to clean energy a lot of the problems related to indoor air pollution can be addressed. Energy burden, energy poverty again linked back to human well-being and health. We know that there are a lot of engineering solutions out there. According to the International Energy Agency they've identified 46 critical energy technologies which if we are to deploy this all these issues would be significantly reduced. Next slide please. So I ask the question do we really know how to solve these problems? Yeah I'll use my sector again as an example. As of June 2020 we were exactly where we were the year before and the year before and the year before. It's not happening. Next slide please. What are the reasons for this? Low uptake of the technologies. We know that the summers are getting warmer. We know that even countries that don't have summer even places like Nairobi where I am right now the the hot months are getting hotter for sure. So they say cooling loads are more than what we can deal with right now. There is a widespread use of less efficient technologies. People talk from when I was a student it's the government policies. Yeah but I find these two last examples kind of interesting. The reasons that are being cited. Yeah insufficient investment in sustainable buildings and also building technologies. And then there's this last one. Lack of bankable projects for impact investment. So they in short there is money but the money is not being connected to the technology developers. What a paradox. Next slide please. So one of my friends and I apologize this is not showing the colors correctly. One of my friends put this very nicely. When we go into low income communities poor neighborhoods in the U.S. when we go to developing countries one of the biggest problems is lack of money. How to make money in a capitalistic systems. In our engineering courses do we really teach this outside of engineering entrepreneurship? I think not. We don't teach people how to work with the community members how to make money. This is why engineering for change and other organizations humanitarian engineering social entrepreneurship they do that they they feel avoid. Next slide please. And then again using my sector as an example architectural engineers building engineers anybody who's in engineering and touching the building. Yeah when we go into the low income poor neighborhoods there's a lot of concerns fear of displacements. Yeah lack of purchasing power. They are afraid that if we succeed with our engineering interventions we will make the final product the house unaffordable. There is a power differential so we say we are co-creating but in reality we are using words and concepts that do not make sense to them. Yeah do we teach our children do we teach our students in the formal engineering curriculum how to address this problem. Next slide please. Again another example reflecting on myself as a student and then over the years that I've been teaching in the formal engineering curriculum again take out humanitarian engineering and social entrepreneurship take out engineering for engineering without border outside of that where do we teach children our students how to try things. Where do we teach them real life skills problem solving involves failure. Yeah where do we teach them where do we give them an opportunity to learn through failing because the problems that we are dealing with are wicked problems they are no easy answers they are going to make mistakes along the way and we're going to have to encourage them outside of the formal system of teaching engineering because that doesn't happen there. I like these words it's not the critical counts the credit belongs to the man or woman who's actually in the arena who has who comes short again and again because there's no effort without error and shortcomings. I do not think my structural in like this like if I was to tell them if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall be with those who those called and shall shall never be with those called timid souls who never know victory nor defeat one of the best memories I have of the humanitarian engineering and social entrepreneurship program at Penn State was in 2017 when I traveled with a group of students to Tanzania and they went in very confident we had these concepts these prototypes we thought these things are gonna work and then I try to tell them be modest with your expectations but I allowed them to experiment I knew that what they thought was gonna work was not gonna work but I allowed them to try it out and they came back and I was very happy when I had them talk because they didn't feel like it was a waste of time they said they learned a lot through the things they were trying to do not working they learned humility they learned to listen to the local people they learned to listen to the low income poor community members share their experiences next slide please so there's a health in my sector there is a big health component that is connected to what we put on the table it's very easy for us to say we are architects we're engineers we we will hand over this problem to the medical people to the people in public health I've spent a lot of time looking at what it is that they're doing and yes I respect the successes and the outcomes of their efforts but when I look at the way they're intersecting with the problem you know I like this document that I found it's a upstream communication it's very difficult to swim upstream upstream it starts with the fact that the design concepts the things that are going in the building the control is on the side of the design professional not the public health of the medical people the concept they're using here will not allow easy alignment with the engineering side of the question so I'm saying we have to we have to help our students we have to help junior professionals people who are getting into the market we have to give them the skills that will allow them to connect with the people who are swimming upstream we in this context are swimming downstream so as engineers it's much easier for us to reach out to them than the other way around another the next slide please so in this is actually my last slide so I see here a very big opportunity that requires quantitative critical thinking skills that engineering programs are reaching it's a multi-dimensional problem and the way we train our students actually provide them with the basics all we need to do is augment them with things such as again using the building sectors and as an example how do we connect our engineering skills and our knowledge with human health and well-being it can be done how do we connect this with climate science in a way that results in disaster being addressed proactively the risk being addressed proactively how do we connect our engineering skills with making money jobs economic development these are questions which can be answered the the issues related to affordability they can be answered diversity equity and inclusion I've shared my examples whenever the topic is touching on a vulnerable population I do not need to go the extra mile to attract underrepresented groups right now I'm the director of the global building network up and state-led initiative and I'm very surprised when I tell people that the participation of women in a male dominated profession is at 90 percent in fact I have to do more to get the majority people who are usually the majority to participate social justice race when these women show up and the women they're black women Latino women Asian women white women when they show up they're responding to things such as when we use words like energy justice they show up and it's the same at the student level engineering for developing communities is very uniquely poised to connect all these critical pieces this is my life slide next slide will be my email address I welcome conversations and I welcome your participation in the panel again my name is Esther Obonio feel free to reach out thank you so much thank you thank you Esther we will now hear from Amadi as she shares her experience as a student and a global social impact fellow hi everyone my name is Ibuci Amadi I'm a student a sophomore at Lehigh University and I'll be sharing the student perspective in my experience as a global social impact fellow at Lehigh next slide please so I'll start by talking about why I came to Lehigh I was drawn to the ideas program which is an integrated degree in engineering arts and sciences and so I was drawn to that program because I've always been interested in several subject areas whether that be in STEM or the humanities and so the ability to integrate those into one major was really appealing to me rather than focusing on one so I came in with the goal of having my engineering concentration be in civil engineering and my arts concentration be in global studies and I've also recently just added global population help but I came in with the general idea and hope that I would be able to apply civil engineering skills on a global scale and have the cultural understanding to implement change anywhere but beyond that I was pretty unsure of how it could actually integrate the two in practice and in the real world so I wanted to get involved in programs and opportunities as early as possible at Lehigh and so when searching I learned about GSIF from or global social impact fellowship from several outlets and I decided to go to an info session and in there in a discussion with Kanjan Mehta, Bill Whitney and two other students one topic that was brought up was the lack of knowledge that students have about career options other than industry and academia especially for engineering and in that conversation I realized that I actually had this limited perspective and I figured that I would just go straight to industry and figure out how to create impact along the way and so as I continued to talk about more options I became so much more interested in GSIF and how it could help contribute to my life goals and professional development and also help me understand how I can actually integrate my two concentrations and so from the first class of the GSIF program my worldview was just incredibly widened we got a glimpse of some of the world's most pressing issues and learned how an impact focused education can help us tackle those issues and of course one topic that stood out to me in that first class was the different career options that STEM students could engage in besides industry and academia whether that's in non-properates, multilaterals or the fourth sector and throughout my entire time at GSIF it became clear that these fields are not just something engineers like myself can get involved in but are things that we should be getting more involved in. Next slide please. So now speaking more on my actual GSIF experience I've been able to work with Lehigh students in different years majors and disciplines with different skills and perspectives and this includes students not just on my team that you can see here on the slide but also with global social impact fellows working on other projects and so now that we're near the end of our kind of first cycle of work which is two semesters it's really great to look back and see how we started with a problem and we created a solution by researching extensively, working with each other, working with our university partners in Kazakhstan and getting important guidance from our faculty advisor and several other innovators we've met along the way and so now to go more in depth on the actual project we started as a smart city innovations project told me to create impacts by implementing a smart city innovation in Almaty Kazakhstan and so most of us didn't know much about Almaty or smart innovations in depth so the beginning of our project was really research-focused we started with the UN Sustainable Development Goals we chose four to focus on and researched smart city innovations that are making real change towards those different SDGs and out of that came the four engineering for change articles that we all wrote and got published on E4C and so after considering this research and research on Almaty we decided that one of the most pressing issues is pollution including air and land pollution and we decided that or and mobile apps were a common theme in all of our research on smart innovations so we decided that the best way we could create impact using a bottom-up approach was through a mobile app. Next slide please and so that is where SaveTuber was born so I'll talk now a little bit more about the actual venture so starting with the problem Kazakhstan has invested over $500 million over the last 15 years in recycling systems to try to combat pollution but only 11% of municipal solid waste is actually recycled this makes it apparent that one of the reasons for this low growth is the lack of education and knowledge on the significance of being sustainable so SaveTuber is our new gamified educational app that takes the user through a story of the native the native Saiga antelope population being depleted because of pollution in Kazakhstan. The app takes users on a journey with the objective of saving Tuba the Saiga that you see on the screen here by completing various sustainable actions in real life and quizzes across many lessons in the app. Each level teaches the user about a certain topic of either waste management environmental literacy or climate change including topics from recycling to using to composting etc. The app incentivizes users through intrinsic rewards within the app such as character customization and power ups but also exchange rewards such as vouchers to local businesses and rewards within their classroom that their teachers will provide. They'll be implemented in schools across the country for students ages six to fifteen. Through our partnerships with university students and with private and public primary and secondary schools in Kazakhstan we plan to have reached three schools by 2022 and increase the recycling rate to 15%. We have worked on the design and development of the app and currently have a minimum viable product. Our team has worked on the SaveTuba venture for the last spring semester, the summer and this fall semester and though I and another teammate are remaining on the team for another semester we are passing the baton on our private to three new Lehigh students we are confident and we'll continue to push the venture forward. Next slide please. So now considering the impact of the GSIF the global social impact fellowship on my life goals I never could have imagined that you know as a first-year student I'd be able to participate in an opportunity like GSIF and create real impact through a venture like SaveTuba. I've been able to learn about global issues, global development and global solutions in different subject areas. I've learned many of the mindsets skill sets and methods in which sustainable change is actually made. I've been able to work on several publications. I've learned about the importance of collaboration with several partners and the importance of leveraging systems that are already present to make the most effective change. I've had many cross-cultural experiences working with different people in Kazakhstan whether that be students at universities or the chief digital officer of the city of Almaty. I've been able to meet and get incredible insight from different global innovators and I've picked up many technical and soft skills along the way. The most important takeaway from me has been my increased clarity about how I can actually make an impact with my degree, my studies and other endeavors. I came to Lehigh like I talked about earlier with a general idea of how I could use civil engineering on a global scale and now because of GSIF I've seen firsthand how engineering arts sciences and more can and should be integrated. Looking at my team it's impactful to see that we may not otherwise have crossed paths academically if not for the GSIF and that's important because it has it has shown me that real change and impact requires multidisciplinary teams that are diverse in identity, background, major skill and perspectives. Opportunities like GSIF can be more attractive to women and underrepresented minorities because they are emerging which means they aren't necessarily heavily dominated by one group. They require different kinds of people and they focus on social impact. When talking to other engineers of color at Lehigh I found that many don't really see themselves in just industry or academia so non-traditional opportunities like GSIF are life-changing because they can expand a worldview of what is possible. Thank you. Thank you thank you Ngoji and as we conclude this part of our session I want to give our panelists a round of applause for sharing such critical information and now we'll open the floor up for questions. So to our panelists when you think of your professional societies or professional societies in general what role do you see those societies playing in promoting global engineering work? What role do you see them playing as a tool to promote this work? If I could just speak or first on this question I think the American Society for Microbiology albeit a separate discipline has an excellent framework for demonstrating how a professional society can support scientific talent domestically and abroad. So at one point in time they were the largest scientific organization and they have a program which initially was reserved for senior scientists in microbiology that is called the American ASM science ambassador and they created the same for students and the purpose of these ambassador programs were really to learn about the needs in the microbiology community with regards to the universities so not only financial support but also technological barriers and barriers for student success if they needed to collaborate with someone in another country providing funds for that and so I feel like a similar approach can be used for engineering because that program specifically the ambassador program has spurred a separate medical clinical certificates and medical microbiology that is supported through the society that kind of gets to that skill technical workforce that I was referring to which would be addressing a gap for both science and engineering so that's just one example while it's a different discipline same principles apply. Thank you so I'll share two examples I'm affiliated with American Society for Civil Engineers and during the early stages of my career I got recruited into what they call global center for excellence in computing what that did for me as a faculty member because it's global computing it means you can actually do things in developing countries why is this significant as a young assistant professor who's looking for tenure you want legitimacy you want to work in things that have that you don't have to explain like is this professional work if the American Society for Civil Engineers says global excellence in computing is important then it is important and by extension it means it's easier for me to include my students in that kind of activity because it's no longer seen as mission work there's nothing wrong with mission work but the university is not set up to do mission work we are set up to educate to research yeah and we do work with the community members but as a university so I'll actually just leave it at that one example that by embracing the concept of global low-income communities developing community you give it legitimacy for people to participate from the university thank you I could talk about this a little bit as well so I'm a NACMI scholar and the or NACMI stands for the National Action Council for Minority Engineers and so just being involved with that recently it's been great to get obviously the scholarship but also career opportunities academic resources mentorship and just have the network and community of underrepresented minorities in engineering and I think professional societies like NACMI and NSBE and SAIS and SHIP are already kind of doing the work to promote diversity and so I think other professional societies can work with them and help promote some of the things and the work that they're doing thank you and so for the sake of time we're going to wrap up our session but I do encourage everyone who is with us today to reach out to the panelists to stay connected on LinkedIn or social media so on behalf of myself the panelists and ASME we thank you for joining us today and again please feel free to reach out to the panelists after this session to stay in touch and ask any additional questions thank you everyone