It seems that there are any number of initiatives these days that are aimed at improving diversity in the field of engineering and these initiatives are both welcome and needed.
Design and build competitions are common, challenging aspiring engineers to create and innovate with electronic or mechanical systems.
However, the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) EngineerGirl initiative takes a different approach, offering an essay contest to encourage young girls to engage in engineering with the chance to speak directly to their peers as students and future engineers.
The NAE EngineerGirl 2016 Essay Contest
This essay contest is thematically different from many design and build contests that focus on physically building or using computer simulation and design. The contest requires young female engineers to think critically and describe a responsible and ethical technology that offers improvements in at least one area of engineering responsibility: safety, health, personal well-being and environmental sustainability.
At the high school level, the first place winner Katherine Collins, an 11th grade student from Newton, Massachusetts, phrased things exactly right:
“Responsible engineering is about finding potential weaknesses and sources of harm within a technology and then modifying that technology to ensure that the weakness is remediated.”
Her winning essay “Engineered Safeguards for Synthetic Probiotics” discusses the responsibilities inherent in biomedical engineering, through the example of engineering “kill switches” into synthetic probiotics to ensure these bacteria can be safely removed from either a person or the environment.
Second place went to Clio Holman from Austin, Texas, for her essay “Engineering a Cure for Cancer: Opportunities, Challenges and Responsibilities.”
Placing third was Richa Gupta from Bangalore, India, and her essay “The Ascent of the Fuel Cell Vehicle.”
Encourage Your Future Engineering Peers
Are you a recent engineering graduate or a professional engineer? One of the best ways to help improve diversity in engineering is to share your experiences with other young girls and women to encourage them in their pursuit of engineering.
The EngineerGirl website has a variety of ways you can get involved in their initiative, including:
- Create an informational profile in the EngineerGirl’s Directory of Women Engineers. This lets interested students or their teachers find information on your field, or approach you with questions about working in engineering.
- Volunteer to help read and score the EngineerGirl essay contest submissions.
- Submit an interview sharing your experiences as a woman in engineering.
- Share articles or blog posts on specific engineering experiences, such as finding an internship, or share information about exciting projects and research being pursued by engineers.
For more information, check out the NAE’s EngineerGirl website.