ADVANCE Partnership: Leveraging Intersectionality and Engineering Affinity groups in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (LINEAGE)

Professional societies play a critical role in the advancement of PhDs in academia and industry by setting standards of excellence through policies and practices. They set the tone for culture and climate within STEM disciplines. For industrial engineering and operations research (IEOR), the two societies that establish field norms are the IISE (Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers) and INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences). Professional organizations shape engineers’ academic identity and determine what is valued and rewarded in their disciplines. The NSF ADVANCE LINEAGE project will partner with these global professional organizations to address systemic causes of inequity for women of color by integrating positive organizational scholarship (POS) with the Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) framework. LINEAGE will evaluate the hypothesis that through these organizations it is possible to transform a field and systemically change culture and climate within the field. Through the co-creation of affinity groups (AG) with IISE and INFORMS, this project aims to achieve systemic changes in academic workplaces and the profession that will improve the recruitment, retention, and success of women of color in these disciplines. This project is informed by prior work to understand the impact of AGs in academia and industry funded by the NSF Directorate for Engineering (NSF 2024569). This prior work provides evidence that AGs have the potential to produce systemic change in academic workplaces and in the professions. The LINEAGE project focuses on AGs in professional societies, rather than individual institutions, because 1) women of color are often the “only” in their home departments, which creates an isolated environment, and 2) professional societies reach individuals at all stages of their careers, from PhD to full professors. LINEAGE will partner with the EBJ NSF INCLUDES funded Aspire Alliance to learn from the iThrive Collective (intentional counterspaces to address issues identified by underrepresented faculty). The NSF ADVANCE program is designed to foster gender equity through a focus on the identification and elimination of organizational barriers that impede the full participation and advancement of diverse faculty in academic institutions. Organizational barriers that inhibit equity may exist in policies, processes, practices, and the organizational culture and climate. ADVANCE "Partnership" awards provide support for the adaptation and adoption of evidence-based strategies to academic, non-profit institutions of higher education and non-academic, non-profit organizations. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.