Expanding the Engineering Ambassadors Network to Integrate Career Opportunities with the NAVY
Abstract
Mission: Developing Diverse Leaders Today; Inspiring Engineers for Tomorrow. The Engineering Ambassadors Network is a professional development organization for university students with a K-12 STEM outreach mission.This Abstract is approved for public release.To solve challenges in defense, energy, and the environment, a wide variety of solutions are needed thatcan be realized only by having adiverse group of engineers who have both a strong technical background and the confidence to communicate their work to varied audiences. The vision of the Engineering Ambassadors Network (EAN) is to attain such a diverse group of engineers by overcoming two barriers. First, many K-12 school teachers and guidance counselors lack knowledge about the career opportunities that a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degree offers, resulting in qualified students not considering STEM as an academic or professional path. Many of these qualified students are women, individuals of color, or first-generation college students. As a second barrier, numerous studies have indicated that although STEM employers have for years ranked strong communication skills as critical, many STEM graduates still are not prepared to communicate their work or lead multi-disciplinary teams. To overcome both of these barriers, the Network emphasizes placing the right messenger (a diverse cohort of engineering undergraduates with advanced presentation skills) with the right messages (NAE Changing the Conversation messages such as #engineering is essential to our health, happiness, and safety#) in front of K-12 classes. We propose to expand the activities of the Engineering Ambassadors Network through collaborations and support of the NAVY to specifically include: i) consistent NAVY participation in the regional workshops that train the Engineering Ambassadors; ii) integration of specific examples of Naval applications into the K-12 outreach presentations given by the Engineering Ambassadors;and iii) continuous communication with the Engineering Ambassadors Network on the internship, scholarship, and fellowship opportunities in the NAVY. This expansion will lead to an increase in the number of diverse individuals who are aware of engineering and the NAVY as potential career pathways.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Nov 08, 2024
- Source ID
- N000142412475
Entities
People
- Lori Miraldi
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- Pennsylvania State University
- United States Navy