NSF Funds Major Study on Women in Engineering Careers
Milwaukee, April 2, 2009 -- Assistant Professor of Organizations and Strategic Management Romila Singh, together with University Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology Nadya Fouad, has been awarded a major grant from the National Science Foundation through its highly competitive Research on Gender in Science & Engineering division.
Their proposal, "Women's Persistence in Engineering Careers: Contextual Barriers/Support," will receive close to $500,000 in research funding over a three year period. They will seek to discover why women are disproportionately choosing not to continue pursuing their engineering careers, even though more women than ever are graduating from engineering programs.
"It is important to understand the variety of factors that lead women to leave engineering careers, so that educational institutions and organizations can intervene and help shift those choices," said Singh. "The costs associated with women leaving the engineering field – including costs to companies, to the educational system, to society, and to women personally – are too widespread and large to ignore."
Singh and Fouad are pairing up their extensive expertise in career management issues. Singh's work focuses on understanding career management issues such as work-life balance challenges, mentoring relationships, and the effects of diversity on career attitudes and decisions. Fouad's expertise lies in the areas of career development of women and racial/ethnic minorities, cross-cultural vocational assessment, and interest measurement. She recently completed a separate NSF-supported study on women entering math/science and technical careers.
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