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Research over the last three decades has provided extensive documentation of processes that reproduce inequalities for women and racial-ethnic minorities in engineering education. In contrast, scholars are only beginning to understand the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals in engineering. Cumulatively, the limited research that does exist suggests that LGBTQ-identifying individuals encounter stereotypes and bias and report negative experiences that fit within a spectrum of discrimination. However, due to data limitations, research has not yet been able to document LGBTQ inequality relative to the experiences of non-LGBTQ students at the same institution. In this paper, we utilize new survey data on over 1700 students (both LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ) from eight engineering colleges across the U.S. to paint the landscape of inequalities for LGBTQ students. Specifically, we ask, (1) do LGBTQ students experience greater marginalization than their classmates and (2) is their engineering work more likely to be devalued? (3) Do LGBTQ students experience greater personal consequences than their peers in terms of stress, insomnia, and unhappiness? (4) Do these LGBTQ inequalities vary by school? We find that LGBTQ students face greater marginalization, devaluation and personal consequences relative to their peers. There is little variation in the negative climate for LGBTQ students across the eight schools we study, suggesting that LGBTQ inequality is part of the professional culture of engineering that pervades most engineering programs. Broadly speaking, these initial results highlight crucial considerations regarding the inclusion and respect of talented engineering students and the importance of addressing patterns of disadvantage to promote the inclusion of all students.

Her research focuses how identity, among other affective factors, influences diverse students to choose engineering and persist in engineering. She also studies how different experiences within the practice and culture of engineering foster or hinder belongingness and identity development.

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ASEE Safe Zone Workshops and Virtual Community of Practice to Promote LGBTQ Equality in Engineering AbstractEven though recent years have seen significant advances in LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) equality in the U.S. through legislation and social acceptance, research shows that LGBTQ students and faculty on college campuses still experience exclusion and discrimination. This paper describes a transformative project that links diversity research with a faculty development initiative to promote LGBTQ equality in engineering. The aims of the project are to (1) identify aspects of engineering culture that present barriers to LGBTQ equality, (2) build knowledge and skills to disrupt discrimination and promote LGBTQ equality in engineering departments on college campuses and (3) to identify best practices for promoting LGBTQ equality in engineering.Safe Zone Workshops create a visible network of LGBTQ-affirming faculty who contribute to creating a positive and inclusive climate in engineering departments. A Virtual Community of Practice (VCP) works together to support individual members to take action to advance LGBTQ equality in their departments. Over 270 engineering educators have attended the 20 Safe Zone Workshops offered at the ASEE Annual Conference in the last two years. Evaluation results indicate that the content of the Safe Zone Workshops has been appropriately tailored to an audience of engineering educators, and that there is a clear call to expand the workshops and nurture the conversation about LGBTQ inclusion in engineering. Online technology is being used to create a scalable and sustainable model for sharing knowledge, tools and resources to promote LGBTQ inclusion in environments that are traditionally difficult to penetrate. Using a twotiered, train-the-trainer structure, two experts trained a cohort of twenty leaders to facilitate online and face-to-face Safe Zone Workshops and lead a Virtual Community of Practice for engineering faculty. The workshops and VCP are being launched in early 2016.This project uses a transformative, cyclical mixed-method research model to provide a basis for social change. The transformative research generates new knowledge of engineering culture through surveys of engineering deans, faculty and students as well as ethnographic participant observations during Safe Zone training sessions with engineering faculty. The cyclical aspect of the project plan integrates this new knowledge into another level of Safe Zone training sessions that address engineering culture more specifically.