Pathways to Inclusion

06/11/24 • 32 min

Achieving equity in engineering means having a team that includes everyone. Where do you find that team? It’s not longer time to think about an engineering pipeline. We need to think of pathways instead.

In this episode, host Wanda Sigur will speak with Lieutenant General Tom Bostick, a strategic advisor at Gingo Bioworks and the 53rd Chief of Engineering of the United State Army and Commanding General for the US Army Corps of Engineers, and Dr. Earl Lewis, professor of history at the University of Michigan. They will speak about the history of people of color in engineering, the pathways of those people into STEM professions, and how we can join those pathways to create a more inclusive future.

For more information about the National Academy of Engineering, please see our website.

Guest Bios

Earl Lewis is the Thomas C. Holt Distinguished University Professor of history, Afroamerican and African Studies, and Public Policy and director of the Center for Social Solutions at the University of Michigan. From March 2013-2018, he served as President of The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation. A noted author and esteemed social historian, he is past President of the Organization of American Historians. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2008) and the American Academy of Political & Social Sciences (2022), he is the recipient of

twelve honorary degrees, and the National Humanities Medal (2023). Lewis has held faculty and administrative appointments at Michigan (1989-2004) and the University of California, Berkeley (1984-89). From 2004-2012, he served as Emory University’s Provost and Executive

Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of History and African American Studies.

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Thomas P. Bostick serves as a Strategic Advisor at Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA). Previously, he was the Chief Operating Officer and President, Intrexon Bioengineering (NASDAQ: XON). He was the 53rd Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Bostick helped lead the nation’s response to Superstorm Sandy. He was the Army’s Director of Personnel, and previously, the Commanding General of U.S. Army Recruiting Command. He deployed with the 1st Cavalry Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom. During 9/11, he was the senior watch officer in the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center on the Joint Staff where he controlled the keys to the nation’s nuclear codes. He was an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at West Point. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Bostick is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, holds Master of Science Degrees in both Civil and Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, an MBA from Oxford University, and a PhD in Systems Engineering from George Washington University where he is a member of the School of Engineering and Applied Science Hall of Fame.

Dr. Percy Pierre is an Adjunct Professor in the Clark School and Glenn L. Martin Endowed Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Pierre has over 50 years of experience in academic administration and the administration of military research and development. His service in academic administration includes Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies at Michigan State University, President of Prairie View A&M University near Houston Texas, and Dean of Engineering at Howard University in Washington DC. He also served on the Board of Trustees of the University of Notre Dame and the Board of Trustees of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. His service in military R&D administration includes service as Acting Secretary of the Army in 1981, as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research, Development, and Acquisition, and as a researcher at the RAND Corporation. Pierre is recognized as the first African American to earn a doctorate in electrical engineering. Pierre was elected to National Academy of Engineering membership in 2009.

For more information about the National Academy of Engineering, please see our website.

Guest Bios

Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of History and African American Studies.

Previous Episode

Engineering Solutions that Benefit from Diversity

Engineering has changed our lives in so many ways. Those changes were driven by people–by human knowledge and creativity. And that creativity gets a boost when diverse perspectives, skills and backgrounds are included in the conversation.

This is Engineering the Future: Diversity Dialogues, a podcast from the National Academy of Engineering. Our host, Wanda Sigur, spent her career at Lockheed Martin, tackling the difficult challenges of human spaceflight. Now, she brings her skills to an even greater challenge–bringing down barriers to equity and inclusion in engineering. In our first episode, Wanda speaks with Dr. Nancy Cooke, professor of Human Systems Engineering at Arizona State University, and Dr. Ken Washington, senior vice president and chief technology and innovation officer at Medtronic, about how teams with many different perspectives can produce the best solutions.

For more information about the National Academy of Engineering, please visit our website.

Guest Bios

Nancy J. Cooke is a professor in Human Systems Engineering at the Polytechnic School, one of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU). She also directs the ASU Global Security Initiative’s Center for Human, AI, and Robot Teaming. Dr. Cooke received her PhD in Cognitive Psychology from New Mexico State University. She is a past president of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and the past chair of the Board on Human Systems Integration at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She also served as a panel chair and co-editor of the National Academies consensus study on “Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science.”

Ken Washington serves as senior vice president and chief technology and innovation officer at Medtronic. Prior to joining Medtronic, Dr. Washington was vice president and general manager of Consumer Robotics at Amazon. Prior to that, he was chief technology officer at Ford Motor Company, overseeing development of the company’s technology strategy including next-generation vehicle architectures, controls and automated systems. He also spent seven years at Lockheed Martin in various leadership roles including chief technology officer, chief privacy officer and vice president, Advanced Technology Center, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University and is a fellow of the MIT Seminar XXI program on International Relations.

Next Episode

Changes that Work: Effective Workforce Practices

So often when we hear about DEI initiatives, we hear about the ones that fail. This episode, it’s time to focus on what works.

In this episode, host Wanda Sigur will speak with Dr. Wanda Austin, the CEO of Makingspace, Inc, and Dr. Ivuoma Onyeador, assistant professor in the Management and Organizations Department at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, about the research around workplace diversity and what works, from increased advocacy to having authentic conversation about race, gender and more.

For more information about the National Academy of Engineering, please see our website.

Guest Bios

Dr. Ivuoma Onyeador is an Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern Univeristy. Her research examines how people judge and respond to group-based discrimination and disparities. She has been named a "Rising Star" by the Association for Psychological Science, selected for the SAGE Early Career Trajectory award by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and for a Mission Award from the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science. In 2022, she was named one of the best 40 under 40 MBA professors by Poets & Quants. Professor Onyeador earned her B.S. in Psychology, with distinction, from Yale University, her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from UCLA, and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Wanda M. Austin is co-founder of MakingSpace, Inc., a systems engineering and leadership development consultant and motivational speaker. She is the author of Making Space: Strategic Leadership for a Complex World, which explores the leadership principles she learned during her decades-long journey as an engineer, space industry executive, daughter, wife and mother. She is the former president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation, an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to the application of science and technology toward critical issues affecting the nation’s space program. Austin served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology until January 2017. She is a member of the Defense Science Board and the NASA Advisory Council, an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), a counselor of the National Academy of Engineering, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a trustee for the University of Southern California and on the Board of Directors for the Chevron Corporation and Amgen.