Career paths and building a supportive network for female faculty of color

We are three female faculty of color[1] who crossed paths while pursuing our academic careers. In this work, we share our personal stories of how our identities evolved into who we are today as female faculty members in mechanical engineering and how our identities might continue to impact our paths later in our careers. The three of us have very different identities, but the common point is that we “chose” our careers in academia. Through this work, we discussed what led to our “choice” to become faculty, connected with each other about the difficulties we faced, and highlighted “missed opportunities” in each of our paths. We want to emphasize that there is more than one pathway to a career in academia. We also want to emphasize the importance of self-reflection and find ways to support other women who may be feeling isolated and excluded in engineering. We see this conference as a great venue to share and gain such support from others. [1] The authors are located in the United States of America, where “people of color” generally refer to all non-White populations. Updated with minor typographical corrections: June 30, 2025.