Wright State University Press Release

A collaboration of four institutions, with Wright State as the lead, has won a prestigious 5-year, $2.86 million National Science Foundation ADVANCE grant to increase the representation of women in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Academy titled “In the footsteps of Katherine Wright: Promoting STEM women through LEADER.” Winning this grant places regional institutions in the company of other ADVANCE-funded institutions including University of Michigan, Duke, Cornell, UC Irvine, Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech among others.

“Women are underrepresented in STEM academic positions at institutions of higher education in the Miami Valley as they are nationwide and the problem is especially acute in the physical and mathematical sciences and all the engineering fields,” said Michele Wheatly, dean of Wright State's college of science and mathematics and principle investigator for the grant. “In order to attract more women students into the STEM fields and professions, we need to have faculty role models, women who are successful researchers and teachers. Women have good instincts for use-inspired design and our engineering products and technologies will benefit handsomely from their full participation. Achieving gender equity in the STEM academy requires transformation of institutional structures, processes and climate,” Wheatly added.

Personnel partnering on this project with Wheatly include: David Goldstein and Tamera Schneider at Wright State; Joseph Saliba, Malcolm Daniels, Peggy Desautels and Jayne Robinson at University of Dayton; Kimberly Kendricks at Central State University; and Heidi Ries at the Air Force Institute of Technology. These four institutions will form the LEADER Consortium with the purpose of Launching Equity in the Academy across the Dayton Entrepreneurial Region. LEADER will work to analyze the climate for women in STEM fields across institutions and create transparency and accountability for transforming the climate to recruit and promote women in the STEM academy but also more broadly in the STEM industries that will rescue the economy of the Dayton region.

Applying research principles from social, moral and organizational psychology, the effort will assess institutions' climates and then develop initiatives for improving their climates for all faculty but particularly for STEM women.

LEADER will monitor progress towards stated benchmarks in the recruitment, retention and successful advancement of STEM women. Together with the high quality of life in the region, the partners hope that this consortium will create a sustainable women-friendly community of STEM practice in the region that will assist us in drawing the best STEM talent to “one of the most livable regions of America.”