Thriving Stars: Star Power

Star Power

Improving gender representation in electrical engineering and computer science with Thriving Stars

VISION

As technological innovations shape and define every aspect of our daily lives, the need for intellectual diversity in computing and information technology fields has never been greater. But at MIT and around the nation, just a quarter of the doctoral candidates in electrical engineering and computer science—our future scientific, technical, business, and policy leaders—are women. If trends hold, we will not reach gender parity in tech this century.

To fully rise to humanity’s most complex challenges and meet the needs of every single member of society, tomorrow’s breakthrough technologies must represent the perspectives, ideas, and approaches of all genders.

Thriving Stars: An Inaugural Year of Accomplishments

In the first 18 months of its implementation, Thriving Stars broke records in EECS.

Introducing Thriving Stars, a new MIT initiative with an ambitious goal: to achieve gender parity in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) doctoral program within five years through meaningful change in recruitment, admissions, enrollment, community, visibility, and support—change that is destined to transcend MIT and reach into every corner of the technology sector.

47 WOMEN IN ENTERING PHD COHORT

Highest number of women and underrepresented genders in EECS’s history.

68% YIELD

The matriculation rate for women, up from 60% in 2021, exceeded that of men.

Thriving Stars has quickly become a shining example of what can be accomplished through a purposeful, collective commitment to promoting a culture of belonging and excellence for academia’s brightest lights.

830 FEMALE APPLICANTS

All-time-high number of women who applied for the 2023 graduate admissions cycle.

“ Today, the undergraduate student pipeline in EECS is filling up with women—to the tune of 40% of the population. Also, women now represent 42% of our junior faculty, a notable increase. But since I started my journey as an MIT PhD student in EECS in 1999, the doctoral student representation of women has continued to hover around 20%. The time is ripe for an initiative to impact gender representation, including all marginalized genders, at the doctoral level. This is why I’m so excited to be a part of Thriving Stars.”

Asu Ozdaglar SM ’98, PhD ’03

Cochair, Thriving Stars

MathWorks

Head, MIT

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Department

of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Deputy Dean of Academics, MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

Guiding Pillars of Thriving Stars

RECRUITMENT

Thriving Stars showcases a PhD as a rewarding path for talented women who are eager to impact the world through technology.

The initiative hosts virtual, curated conversations throughout the academic year that provide undergraduate STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students with valuable opportunities to hear from MIT departmental leaders, EECS women alumnae, and current doctoral candidates.

In February 2022, more than 230 women students, newly admitted doctoral candidates, faculty, and staff came together for a virtual Thriving Stars event, Oh, the Things You’ll Do! (With a PhD). Members of the Thriving Stars Advisory Board (see page 25) captivated guests with personal stories of PhD triumphs and challenges. Attendees left with a renewed sense of confidence and a determination to achieve their career goals—as well as a new network of potential mentors.

ADMISSIONS

Thriving Stars is determined to realize a thorough admissions process that provides checks and balances to blind spots while giving voice to different perspectives.

The initiative supports the studentrun Graduate Application Assistance Program, which seeks to promote equity in the graduate school admissions process. Current doctoral candidates provide guidance to underrepresented and underserved applicants to EECS. In the 2023 admissions cycle, 116 EECS PhD mentors were matched with 214 eligible applicants, opening the doors to mentoring relationships.

116

EECS DOCTORAL CANDIDATE MENTORS

214

ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS

in the 2023 EECS Graduate Application Assistance Program

Committed to supporting students at the start of their PhD journey, Thriving Stars hosts various information sessions for all students embarking on the application process to gain information and insights from EECS admissions faculty and staff on what makes a compelling graduate application submission.

ENROLLMENT

Thriving Stars focuses on not only admitting, but also enrolling exemplary student researchers.

The initiative provides all newly admitted women PhD candidates with the information they will need to navigate the enrollment process and suggests ways they can build their networks even prior to arriving at MIT. The overall message is clear: women, and all those of historically underrepresented genders, will succeed at MIT. They are wanted in the EECS community. They will be supported as valued members of the MIT family.

In 2022, Thriving Stars initiated a successful buddy program between new and current PhD candidates. This program helps orient graduate students who will be joining the EECS community, building a support network before they even arrive.

COMMUNITY

Thriving Stars brings the vibrant and active EECS graduate student community into focus.

The initiative increases awareness of the department’s collection of women-led groups and events that foster personal, academic, and professional growth and well-being. These include the Graduate Women in Course 6 (GW6), the annual Erin Aylward Graduate Women’s Community Dinner, the New Women in EECS Seminar series, and the GW6 Annual Research Summit.

Contributing to the thriving community, there is a structured mentorship effort that pairs graduate and undergraduate students and nurtures camaraderie, networking, and peer-to-peer opportunities through increasingly popular social mixers.

Looking beyond the graduation horizon, Thriving Stars envisions networks born at MIT extending into the professional world—where there will finally be strength in equal numbers. Alumni will become part of the Thriving Stars Galaxy, a community of women problemsolvers, change-makers, and technology leaders.

VISIBILITY

Thriving Stars programming shines a bright light on EECS graduates and soon-to-be-graduates who are rapidly emerging as leaders in their fields.

Every spring, the Thriving Stars Research Summit will feature the women-in-tech role models of today and tomorrow, whose research activities and contributions to the EECS community inspire students at all levels to focus, work hard, and continue changing the face of computing and information technologies.

In May 2022, The Thriving Stars of AI convened distinguished faculty and research up-and-comers to discuss the social implications of artificial intelligence.

A beacon on MIT’s campus, Thriving Stars serves not only to encourage women to pursue doctoral work but also to build a more supportive and representative community for all students in the EECS doctoral program.

We believe that what we have built will inspire other institutions around the globe to work to achieve gender parity in their PhD programs.

Event Spotlight: Thriving Stars of AI

In May 2022, Thriving Stars hosted a research summit on MIT’s campus on the social implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Four early-career researchers—MIT doctoral student Sarah Cen and recent PhD recipients Irene Chen PhD ’22, Danielle Olson-Getzen ’14, SM ’19, PhD ’21, and Shibani Santurkar SM ’17, PhD ’21—discussed how AI can be both helpful and detrimental in different contexts, from health care to social media to video games. Following the talks, advisory board member Carol Espy-Wilson SM ’81, EE ’84, ENG ’84, PhD ’87 joined the researchers on a panel moderated by Thriving Stars cochair Asu Ozdaglar SM ’98, PhD ’03.

Attendees came from inside and outside the MIT community, many of whom were researchers in fields beyond STEM. “[I was curious] how they see the world and solve problems,” said Lakshita Boora, a PhD student in organizational behavior at Michigan State University.

SUPPORT

Thriving Stars strives to ensure that women who join EECS feel that they are part of an academic community where there is a mutual commitment to the completion of their advanced training.

Through resources devoted to the initiative’s activities, and by increasing funding through newly established fellowships, EECS will gain the capacity to tangibly recognize the excellence of our women doctoral students.

Fellowship awards offer talented and deserving students the confidence and freedom to pursue exciting, untrodden paths. Such financial support is a mark of confidence in a student’s capacity to flourish at MIT and make significant contributions in the fields of computing and information technologies.

Advisory Board

Stars Professor, Electrical Engineering, MIT Graduate Officer, MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

“ I am determined to give to other women what was given to me. I want them to have an incredible PhD journey: one in which they love their research, cherish their colleagues, and have every opportunity imaginable—and some unimaginable—come their way.”

Leslie A. Kolodziejski

Member, Thriving

Thriving Stars Advisory Board

In 2021, the work of Thriving Stars began with the creation of an advisory board with vast experience and leadership in academia, industry, and research. Today, these individuals collectively design and execute Thriving Stars’ many activities.

Maria Klawe President Harvey Mudd College Professor Computer Science Cochair

Asu Ozdaglar SM ’98, PhD ’03 MathWorks Professor

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Head

MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Deputy Dean of Academics Schwarzman College of Computing Cochair

Anne Dinning Managing Director

D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P.

Susan Dumais Technical Fellow Microsoft Director Microsoft Research Labs

Carol Espy-Wilson

SM ’81, EE ’84, ENG ’84, PhD ’87 Professor

Electrical and Computer Engineering and Institute for Systems Research University of Maryland at College Park

Susan Hockfield President Emerita MIT Professor Neuroscience

Leslie A. Kolodziejski Graduate Officer

MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Professor

Electrical Engineering, MIT

Aude Oliva Director

Strategic Industry Engagement

MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

MIT Director

MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab

Songyee Yoon PhD ’00 Chief Strategy Officer and President NCSOFT

“As Thriving Stars continues and expands its engagement and collaborations and partnerships, more success will follow. The next few years promise to be transformative.”

Maria Klawe President, Harvey Mudd College

Cochair, Thriving Stars Professor, Computer Science

Meet a Doctoral Candidate

Doctoral candidate Sarah Cen remembers the lecture that sent her down the track to an upstream question.

At a talk on ethical AI, the speaker noted a variation on the famous trolley problem, which outlines a choice between two undesirable outcomes. The scenario: a self-driving car is traveling down a narrow alley with an elderly woman walking on one side and a small child on the other, and no way to thread between both. Who should the car hit?

Then the speaker said: Is this the question we should even be asking? That’s when things clicked for Cen. A self-driving car could have avoided choosing between two bad outcomes by making a decision earlier on. The question of how to design better upstream and downstream safeguards to problems like the trolley example has informed much of Cen’s work.

Alongside Devavrat Shah, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor and principal researcher at MIT’s Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, Cen has worked on a wide range of projects that tie to her interest in the interactions between humans and computational systems, from studying options for regulating social media to looking at whether people can receive good longterm outcomes when they not only compete for resources but also don’t know what resources are best for them.

Cen plans to study how to quantify the effect of an action X on an outcome Y when it’s expensive or impossible to measure this effect. “We’re interested in how decisions or interventions affect an outcome of interest, such as how criminal justice reform affects incarceration rates or how an ad campaign might change behaviors,” she says.

Cen applies the principles of promoting inclusivity to her work in the MIT community as a past co-president of GW6. Whether in computing or in the community, a system taking steps to address bias is one that enjoys legitimacy and trust, Cen says. “These principles play crucial roles in society and, ultimately, will determine which systems endure with time.”

—Text adapted from a May 18, 2022 MIT News article

Ways to Engage

We know there is strength in numbers, and we welcome additional ideas to achieve our goals, expand the Thriving Stars network, and encourage other doctoral programs to consider their gender representation. We look forward to a future where people of all genders benefit from equal representation in EECS as they work together to develop technological innovations and solve the world’s most pressing issues.

There are many ways to engage with Thriving Stars: as a philanthropic supporter, as a mentor, or as a guest in our many activities.

To discuss Thriving Stars and the associated opportunities, please contact:

Emily Cefalo Senior Leadership Giving Officer

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Ph: 617.258.8758 | ecefalo@mit.edu