WOMEN IN ENGINEERING
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Growing Around the Globe By Xiaorui Zhu
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t is with great pleasure that I write the first “Women in Engineering (WIE)” column in IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine. This is also the first year of my term as a WIE liaison for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS). Special thanks for all the efforts of our previous liaisons Mihoko Otake and Aude Billard in making this all happen. With the membership of women within the IEEE growing around the globe, the IEEE WIE was officially formed in 1994 and is now a committee of the IEEE Member and Geographic Activities Board. Devoted to promoting the advancement of women in all IEEE technical fields as well as encouraging youth to pursue careers in science and engineering, the mission is to facilitate the recruitment and retention of women in technical disciplines globally such that IEEE women and men can collectively take advantage of their diverse talents for technical innovation to benefit the humanity. Women’s membership in the IEEE from locations outside of the United States is rapidly growing and will likely double this decade, showing an increase of more than 4,000 members since 2008. Under the direction of the Membership Activities Board, there is an RAS WIE group. The current RAS female membership is approximately 7%, and the growing, comparatively, overall IEEE female membership is around 3%. Within RAS, women hold valuable roles, serving as Administrative
Date of publication: 10 September 2012
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IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE
Another important initiative of the group is the WIE Luncheon held during the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) and the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). Beginning at ICRA 2007, prestigious female professionals have participated, supported, and presented these successful events. Nancy Amato, Leslie Pack Kaelbling, Lynne Parker, and Melonee Wise are a few of the notable women who have shared their experiences and advice. Most recently, at ICRA 2011 and 2012, Willow Garage has
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WIE Luncheon at (a) and (b) ICRA 2010 and 2011. (c) and (d) WIE Luncheon at ICRA 2012. Guest speakers at the luncheon: Lynne Parker, professor at the University of Tennessee and Melonee Wise, manager of Robot Development at Willow Garage, addressed the nearly 50 women in attendance.
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Committee members, Technical Committee chairs, and more. With a broad goal of strengthening women’s communication within RAS, WIE has been working to make connections both virtually and face to face. To share and disseminate information, Mihoko Otake set up an email list that reaches 714 RAS WIE members. A second list was created for communication among the RAS WIE organizers. If you are not included, please join our e-mail alias by contacting us at
[email protected]. Most recently, the RAS WIE group on Linkedin In was created.
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• Birds of a Feather The Birds of a Feather Women’s Luncheon was held on 15 May 2012. As a social event in conjunction with ICRA, the luncheon offers young female researchers the opportunity to gather and converse with their peers as well as senior robotics and automation professionals. In an effort to grow the RAS WIE community and foster interaction, attendees were invited to join the
become an important sponsor and industrial partner. The involvement of the industry is expected to help our female members widen the vision in terms of research and career development. I believe this is just a start for WIERAS. Strongly supported by RAS members like David Orin, Stefano Stramigioli, Nancy Amato, Lynne Parker, and Peter Luh, approval was
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WIE e-mail list. The hope is that future communications to the WIE community provide a platform to continue discussions involving career development, research experiences, and more. Xiaorui Zhu, WIE liaison, organized the luncheon, sponsored by the Member Activities Board and WIE. For more information visit www.ieee-ras.org/mab/wie.
given to hold more WIE activities. Through the participation of our WIE organizing committee, which currently consists of 14 senior female professionals from all over the world and student volunteers, we are confident in serving the female members of our Society in new ways. I strongly encourage more female members from academia, industry,
and students to join in and speak out for women engineers in this column. Remember, this is YOUR home (see “Birds of a Feather”). Please join us at these upcoming WIE activities including the WIE Luncheon at IROS 2012, ICRA 2013, and IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE) 2013.
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Student Reviewer Program The goal of Student Reviewer Program is to introduce students and young researchers to the reviewing process in a controlled and supervised way. With this aim, we are organizing participation rounds, in which students are paired with experienced mentors in reviewing a conference paper. Introduced in conjunction with ICRA 2012, we saw a successful round of the Student Reviewer Program (SRP), where 13 students reviewed conference paper submissions with the help of four experienced volunteer mentors. Following the success, a new SRP participation round was organized in conjunction with the IEEE Interna-
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tional Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob) 2012, held in June in Rome. In this round, nearly 50 students applied. Due to the overwhelming response, there were not enough mentors to support all the students. Ultimately, 30 students were selected on the basis of motivation and research interests. These students were then paired up with ten mentors to help with their review of BioRob submissions. After having submitted all student reviews, they were compared with the official conference reviews of associate editors, and the students were graded by their mentors based on a personal evaluation form and the quality of their reviews. Almost all students delivered high-quality reviews, with an average grade of 7.8 (on a scale of 1–10). The reviews revealed that the
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students are typically thorough and have a tendency to be a little stricter in grading the papers than their associate editors. We also asked participants to complete a short survey about their experiences. Overall, students were satisfied with the opportunity SPR provided to improve their skills, and the participation round was valued at 4.2 (on a scale of 1–5). After the two SRP participation rounds, we received many requests asking to see the official reviews, and we will do our best to provide the opportunity. In the near future, we hope to integrate the SRP with PaperPlaza, allowing more flexibility. This would give the students a chance to learn from the other reviews as well. Stay tuned for more SRP at http://sites.ieee.org/ras-srp/.
