Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab

STEM is a large part of our economic engine and foundational to solving the most pressing problems of our day. According to the US Dept of Labor Statistics, the number of STEM jobs is projected to grow by almost 11% by 2031, which is over 2xs faster than the total for all other occupations.  These jobs also pay substantially more ($95,420 for STEM occupations vs. $40,120 for non-STEM occupations).   Many STEM companies/organizations are having a challenge finding and keeping STEM employees because of a shortage of STEM workers in the US.   The lack of gender equity in STEM limits women’s earning potential, compounds shortages of technical talent, and stifles innovation.   Women of color are an important segment that has not been fully tapped for STEM careers because the field severely lacks diversity.  According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), 2/3 of scientists and engineers are White and most of them are male.  In 2015, Black workers made up 11% of the total U.S. labor force but Black women held a mere 1.6% of STEM jobs.  Hispanic/Latino workers represented 16% of the U.S. labor force but Hispanic/Latinx women were only 2% of STEM employees.   

The lack of diversity in the STEM pipeline has been primarily addressed through a focus on recruitment (e.g. getting more women and people of color interested in STEM, pursuing STEM degrees and accepting STEM jobs).  We believe the time is now to uplevel our vision of how to address the lack of diversity in STEM.  The research finds that early career advancement and leadership training are among the most important elements to retaining women and women of color in STEM.   This includes a 2022 meta-analysis in Stanford Social Innovation Review on the successes of STEM pipeline programs and a 2019 scholarly report of the consequences a lack of diversity hiring in STEM has on US global competitveness.  In addition, a recent McKinsey report found early promotions in a career are most critical to success for women.  They found women have been losing ground over the past eight years in the step up from first position to manager. The McKinsey study suggests a key to addressing this career divide is by providing women with opportunities beyond technical training by offering skills building focused on career development and leadership. 

Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab provides STEM based companies/institutions with leadership and career development tools for women of color.  We do this through our programs/events and online community. 

1- Programs/Events- Our programs focus on foundational skills that are often not taught in STEM education programs such as building & leading teams, effective communication and managing conflicts/crisis.  Our focus is on providing skills as it relates to STEM learning styles and STEM work environments.  We also add value by tailoring our programs to address unique cultural issues that many women of color face, including discrimination, gender bias, historical/community racial trauma, work life balance challenges, finding mentors/communities of support. 
2- Online community- We have built an online community for women of color in STEM to connect, learn from/support one another and share resources in order to thrive in their STEM careers.

Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab aims to have individual, secondary and tertiary impacts.  Our target population is women of color in STEM.   Through their participation in our online community they are able to feel less isolated by connecting with other women of color in similar fields. By accessing our programs they are able to gain leadership skills that will assist them in moving up the career ladder in a way that they value, therefore increasing the chances that they stay in STEM.  

Before we launched our services, we conducted a series of online virtual events and discussion groups to generate ideas about the needs of our target population.   Our goal is to continue gathering information about the target population’s needs through biannual surveys of our online community members and program participants.   We also will be establishing an advisory board this summer consisting of current online community members which will meet 2-3 times a year to guide the direction of the community and our program offerings. 

On a secondary level, our goal is to contribute to a culture shift in STEM fields overall.   This includes shifting the mindsets of those working in STEM Human Resources departments to focus more on retaining and promoting women of color (vs. just recruitment). The impact of this would lead to having more women of color in change making positions as leaders.  Thus allowing for more diversity, equity and inclusive (DEI) policies to take shape in those organizations and throughout the STEM field as a whole.  

Broader tertiary aims for our work include women of color in STEM feeling more committed to staying in the field and being able to develop their ideas. Thus leading to them generating more innovations and inventions that has a ripple effect which benefits larger society.  

As a researcher and professor for over 15 years, our team lead Dr. Wallace saw the concerns and talents of women of color not being considered in STEM fields.  After the social unrest and health equity crisis of COVID-19, she felt now was the time for to focus her energy in a more direct and impactful way.  She decided to leave academia and start a business focused on closing the gap in retention of women in STEM particularly women of color.  There have been efforts to recruit women of color to universities and STEM companies.  However, after these women are brought in, there is often little that is provided to support them in navigating what can be an isolating and hostile experience.  The field of STEM is often based on an apprentice model, where most of the training is provided by a handful of individuals whom are charged with showing one the ropes in the field.  Unfortunately, women of color may be matched with supervisors/trainers that do not engage with them and provide little mentoring about the unwritten rules of success in the field.  Many of the women she encountered in STEM became discouraged by this marginalization and dropped out. She was fortunate to navigate the STEM research world successfully by obtaining tenure as a professor and acquiring external funding for grants from federal and foundation sources. She knows first hand that STEM success can happen for women of color.   

She was selected to lead committees by her professional association (American Psychological Association) and served on several boards for National Institutes on Health (NIH) diversity pipeline initiatives. She understands that leadership in STEM makes a difference in broadening the scope of networking relationships available to women, enhancing creativity and innovation of one’s ideas and building confidence/professional skills that are important for career advancement.    Unfortunately many of the women of color she encountered lacked access to those resources and had limited encouragement to pursue positions of influence in their fields.  

Her desire is for Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab to be that bridge.  The mission is for it to be an incubator for growing a cadre of women of color visionaries and leaders dedicated to making an impact on society through STEM.  Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab takes an asset based approach through an intersectional lens by centering our programs and mission on the value women of color bring to the table.   As previously mentioned, we are engaging members of our target community in several ways.  Initially we conducted a series of online virtual events and discussion groups to generate ideas about the needs of our target population. We plan to continue gathering information about the target population’s needs through biannual surveys of our online community members and program participants.   We also will be establishing an advisory board this summer consisting of current online community members which will meet 2-3 times a year to guide the direction of the community and our program offerings. 

We are currently in the pilot phase of our business.  A major goal we accomplished in late 2022 was getting the Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab online community started.   We have been intentional about identifying the needs of women of color in STEM and building organically over the past 6 months as we are bootstrapping our work using our team lead’s personal funds/resources.   We started by successfully piloting virtual circles over the summer 2022 where more than 80% of those who RSVP’d attended our offerings.  We listened to what attendees asked for and in the Fall we built an online community so attendees could stay engaged.  Our focus has been on building the Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab online community.  We are currently piloting with a small number of members (50) to best understand their needs and to build the space in a way that speaks to them. 

While we are cultivating the online community, we are also beginning to build brand awareness through social media posts and updates with our personal networks. The focus on our marketing has been to increase education/understanding of the STEM pipeline problem and the importance of culturally tailored workforce development, particularly leadership development for women of color in STEM. We are now set to begin our next phase of growth, which will be focused on offering leadership development programs for women of color with a focus on outreach to STEM based companies and universities/institutions.

The opportunity to participate as a winner of the MIT Solve Challenge could not have come at a better time.  We are moving into a phase of expanding the pilot that was developed for Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab.  The curriculum that the MIT Solve Challenge offers will provide us a framework for thinking through the next steps in a way that will enhance our possibility for success and sustainability.  We are looking forward to having access to mentors in the areas of social entrepreneurship, STEM education/workforce development and community engagement/collaboration. We welcome introductions to organizations that can help our programs grow.   We see the unique opportunity to learn from the mentors and team members of MIT Solve and Tiger Global Impact Ventures whom have expertise in STEM education/STEM workforce development as well as building impactful social enterprises.  As this is the first business of our Team Lead, having access to coaching and support from peers in the program will help to serve as encouragement and a braintrust of ideas to assist us in considering additional offerings/price structures that could enhance our business model and create more meaningful impact.   

The funding provided by the program would allow us to increase the hours of our part time team members who assist with supporting our community.  The funding will support our Team Lead in working on the business full time, as well as hiring contractors to support our social media/marketing. The funding will also put additional money into building the infrastructure of our programs and business.   

Overall an opportunity to be finalist in the MIT Solve Challenge would greatly enhance what we are doing.  Being able to share and learn from other grantees of the program that are also committed to diversifying STEM fields is sure to improve the quality of our programming and the metrics used to guide our growth/impact.

The community that this project centers is the community of women of color in STEM. This includes Black/African American, Latinx, Indigenious/Native, Asian American female identified individals. Our Team Lead identifies as a woman of color (Black/African American) and in the STEM field.  She is a child of immigrants whose family came to the US with not much materially but whom had strong drive to achieve.  She grew up in low-income housing and used education as a way to rise above her surroundings.  She was encouraged to exercise leadership skills in high school and became senior class president.  That allowed her to see how having a leadership role expanded her network of peers and gave her access to teachers/school administrators in ways she didn’t have outside of that role. She went to Yale University understanding this lesson and continued to hold positions as chapter president of her service based sorority and leading other volunteer efforts.  Upon receiving her PhD as a Research Psychologist she didn’t wait until she was established to pursue leadership roles.  While participating on committees for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), she meet people who were in positions of power in STEM and gave her access to opportunities.  Those years of being involved in leadership activities built her social capital, which helped her achieve more in her STEM career.  She believes her collaboration with others made her a better researcher than if she was just working in her own student/early career silo.  She learned that being in leadership roles helped her create a better program of research, gave her a larger network and built confidence that she belonged and could succeed in her field.  Unfortunately, she rarely saw women of color in those leadership spaces.  Her lived experience has led her to I support other women of color to reach their full potential and thrive in their STEM careers

There are many STEM education programs that aim to increase the pipeline of women of color in STEM.  This includes exposing them to STEM careers, providing additional training in STEM education, providing mentorship from STEM professionals and access to STEM internships/career opportunities. Our solution is innovative in that we are focused on cultivating the leadership potential of women in STEM as a way to support their career advancement.  Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab has a solution to the lack of diversity in STEM fields that is unique in two ways.  The focus is not on just getting more women of color into STEM, it is supporting women to succeed and LEAD the field. Most STEM educational institutions and employers have a goal of increasing the number of girls/women of color in STEM but not much on retaining them. Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab focus is retention and promotion. Our programs aim to encourage women of color to pursue/stay in STEM careers by encouraging connectedness and increasing their social capital while building their leadership/professional development capacity. 

Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab uses a culturally tailored assets based approach centering the belief that women of color have unique experiences and talents that have been untapped and are essential for the field to grow. We use an intersectional lens which is crucial as the experience of being a woman of color in STEM is unique.  Women of color are often the only women and/or person of color in their STEM environments and often the only person in STEM within their families/communities.  This fact often leaves women of color in STEM feeling isolated and misunderstood.  Our programs use an intersectional lens in thinking about, creating and implementing the work.   Our programs speak to the lived experiences, cultural traditions and rich histories that are a source of power, pride and a key to success for women of color.  Having programming that is specific to that journey is our stand out differentiator.  

Another impact we aim to have is a shift in the culture of STEM institutions.   Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab uses an upstream solutions approach where having more women of color in change making positions as leaders will allow for more diversity, equity and inclusive (DEI) policies to take shape in those organizations and throughout the field as a whole. 

One year impact goals 

- Increase commitment among STEM companies/organizations to cultivate diverse women leaders via their investiment in providing their female employees with increased development offerings.
This will be achieved by conducting workshops/meetings with DEI/HR departments at STEM companies/organizations highlighting the benefits of diversifying their leadership and supporting their female employees through increased development offerings (goal reach 25 STEM companies/organizations)
- Increase the commitment of women in STEM to pursue their desired leadership goals
This will be achieved by conducting our leadership workshop/programs for women in STEM (goal offer 40 workshops/programs)
- Increase the confidence of women in STEM to thrive in their STEM careers
This will be achieved via support from our online community (goal to move from pilot phase and open membership to a broader audience- target of 500 members by end of 2024)
- Increase our engagement and advocacy for diversifying STEM leadership
This will be achieved from an increase in our social media marketing and beginning to participate in speaking engagements that highlight the need and benefit of diversifying the STEM leadership pipeline (goal social media reach weekly > 500 impressions, mentions in 5 media outlets, speak at 10 conferences/panels/podcasts relevant to STEM & women’s leadership)

Five Year impact goals
-Increase programming/initiatives among STEM companies/organizations related to developing diverse female leaders
This will be achieved by offering strategic planning with DEI/HR departments at STEM companies/organizations focused on diversifying their leadership (goal reach 75 STEM companies/organizations)

-Increase the number of women in STEM engaged in leadership roles
This will be achieved by continuing to conduct our leadership workshop/programs for women in STEM (goal offer 250 workshops/programs)
This will also be achieved by expanding our offerings to support women when they have achieved leadership status (goal offer 50 workshops/programs for women leaders in STEM)

-Increased financial and policy related commitments by STEM companies/organizations related to diversifying STEM leadership
This will be achieved through partnerships with advocacy groups,  increasing our social media marketing and participation in speaking engagements that highlight the need and benefit of diversifying the STEM leadership pipeline (goal 5 partnerships/events, social media reach weekly > 10,000 impressions, mentions in 75 media outlets, speak 50 conferences/panels/podcasts)

Currently success is measured by amount of engagement with social media posts and online community views/comments.  In the future, success will be measured based on tracking how many meetings/workshops we have engaged with STEM companies/institutions as well as feedback from participants in our leadership programs that complete our evaluations at the end of each workshop. We also plan to conduct quarterly feedback surveys to individuals in our online community evaluating the community’s impact on transforming participants mindsets and increasing their access to social capital. In addition, success will be measured by feedback from institutional clients in terms of their satisfaction with our programs/services and documentation of metrics from their retention and promotion numbers. 

1- Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab uses an upstream systems change approach.   The focus is on increasing the numbers of women of color in STEM by cultivating the leadership potential of those women to take the helm in those industries.

-Activity
Conducting our leadership workshop/programs for women of color in STEM 
Offering our online community to women of color in STEM

-Immediate Output
Increased commitment of women in STEM to pursue their desired leadership goals
Increased confidence of women in STEM to thrive in their STEM careers

-Longer Term Output
Increased numbers of women of color who become leaders in STEM and make systems changes within those institutions. They serve as role models/advocates for diversity, equity and inclusion on a larger societal level. 

2- Another goal of Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab is to transform the way HR directors and DEI officers view recruitment and retention efforts. 

-Activity
Conducting workshops/meetings with DEI/HR departments at STEM companies/organizations highlighting the benefits of diversifying their leadership and supporting their female employees through increased development offerings 

-Immediate Output
DEI/HR departments see the benefit of focuses on leadership training to their workforce development efforts. 

-Longer Term Output
Increased commitment among STEM companies/organizations to cultivate diverse women leaders via their investiment in providing their female employees with increased development offerings and coordinated efforts for promotion/advancement.  In addition, they see the added value offering intersectional approaches has on improving retention efforts.    

3- The message Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab is promoting could transform mindsets of not just women of color but also of allies within STEM fields  (STEM employers, policy makers, funders etc). 
Although allies may not be able to single handedly overturn systemic racism/gender bias, they can support future leaders who can contribute to it's dismantling.  We want them to imagine they were the mentor of Mae Jemison or Ellen Ochoa.  These women did not lead change on their own, they had people who helped they grow into the leaders that they became.  Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab encourages allies to think of themselves as gardeners helping great minds to grow into leaders that move us into a new era where gender biased systems in STEM fields are gone.  
-Activity
Social media marketing and participation in speaking engagements that highlight the need and benefit of diversifying the STEM leadership pipeline

-Immediate Output
Greater understandimg among STEM allies of the need for and benefits of investing in and cultivating the leadership potential of women of color in STEM

-Longer Term Output
The combined efforts of supporting women of color into leadership roles and transforming the mindset of allies could have large systemetic impacts on diversifying STEM overall.

Our programs and approach is based on evidence based behavioral technology, in that we have examined the empirical research in STEM education, Human Resources/Business, Positive Psychology and Behavioral Change to create our program content.  We also frame what we do and the skills we focus on within the context of cultural assets (e.g. ancestral practices, intersectionality).   

Full time -1

Part time- 2

Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab is a new enterprise.  We have been in existence for 12 months.  The Team Lead has been working full time on this solution for 10 months (since July 2022).  Both part time contractors have been working on the team for 6 months (since October 2022)

The mission and goals of Women of Color STEM Leadership Lab is to promote diversity, equity and inclusivity.  Our Team Lead is an African American women.  Our part time team members are both female and one of them is Latina (first generation).  In addition to our team being diverse, we believe strongly in including the voices of the communities that we serve. Thus as mentioned, we are creating a community advisory board of women of color in STEM to help guide our work. Our programming is centered on highlighting the strengths of diversity, equity and inclusion.  We use an assets based approach with the belief that women of color have unique experiences and talents that have been untapped and are essential for the STEM field to grow. The program uses an intersectional lens in thinking about, creating and implementing our work. Therefore we always consider gender, race, class, sexual orientation and other intersections that impact the success of women in STEM.  Our programs/services speak to the lived experiences, cultural traditions and rich histories that are a source of power, pride and a key to success for women of color in STEM.  

Our business is B2B.  Thus we have two clients that we serve.  The businesses/institutions that hire us and the women who receive our services.  Currently we offer the following services:

Programs
We offer in person and virtual interactive leadership and career development workshops (single and multisession) to STEM based companies/institutions for their female identified employees/clients. 

Online Community
We have an online community that women can join to interact with other women of color in STEM. The community posts resources (grants, jobs, articles/books/podcasts etc), provides encouragement/inspiration and offers programming to support career development (discussion hours and workshops)

Consulting
We offer needs assessments and strategic planning to STEM based companies/organizations who are looking to expand their DEI offerings as it relates to increasing their female recruitment, retention and promotion.  

We charge STEM companies/institutions for our programs and consulting services.  For the online community our goal once we have completed our pilot phase and opened up our membership is to obtain sponsorships from companies/institution.  These companies would pay to sponsor or host content/programs within our online community and via other events/outlets.  In addition, we plan to approach companies/universities to advertise positions/opportunities to our online membership/network.  We are in the process of getting our certification as a W/MBE which will also allow us to bid for government contracts to offer our leadership programs to local/state and federal agencies that are primarily STEM based.   We do pursue grants and in the future will look to do some crowd funding though this is not the primary way we will sustain our business.

We have received 25K in funds from friends and family to support the initial stages of our program development (including paying part time contractors, buying software needed to create online community platform).

We received a grant from an entrepreneur network community, Parentpreneur Foundation, to get free Virtual Assistant support for several months.
We received a grant from Wiggin and Dana, LLP Law firm to receive pro bono legal services.
We received $500 as a semi-finalist of the Common Future Accelerator program.