Engineering field needs a female perspective

Women engineers are hard to come by, and in Utah, even fewer females seem to be interested in the increasingly necessary, male-dominated field.

"Women tend to choose professions where they can have a higher impact and really feel like they can make a difference in the world," said Cynthia Furse, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Utah.

In the United States, very low percentages of women choose to study engineering, specifically electrical, computer science and mechanical engineering. Furse said that only 4 to 7 percent of U. graduates in those fields are women, mirroring the 8 to 10 percent nationally. However, other countries surpass the U.S. numbers, ultimately claiming more women engineers.

"For whatever reason, our culture is not encouraging women to go into engineering," she said. Furse blames a lack of information for the low statistics, saying that women just aren't aware of the impact they could have as engineers.

National recruitment efforts are starting to focus on younger aged women, "to get them excited about math and science and make a real effort to show them how it is used in real life," Furse said.

About 75 Girl Scouts learned on Thursday at the U. that engineering involves so much more than bridges and buildings.

"It's pretty cool," said Sage Carson. "I didn't know most of this stuff before or how to do it."

Groups of the young women participated in designing, building and patenting a heart valve; exploring digital circuits while dissecting computers to learn how they work and better understand how to care for them; constructing models of buildings and determining how they would react to an earthquake, as well as getting a sampling of high-tech computer imaging.

Lauren Read, a chemical engineer student as well as president of the U.'s chapter of the Society for Women Engineers, said "it is fun to see the girls begin to understand and see the possibilities right in front of them."

As a fan of math, chemistry, biology and physics at a young age, Read said she found the right mix of her favorite courses going into engineering. She will graduate this spring and head to a job in Texas where she'll work with the petroleum industry "getting oil out of the ground more efficiently."

U. students like Read met with the Girl Scouts Thursday, serving as an example of what women can do and showing them that "an old, grizzled man in a white lab coat" is not the typical engineer as they might think, she said.

The highest numbers of women at the U. tend to be civil or bioengineers, where Furse said "it's obvious they are impacting the world." But five other disciplines are taught, including electrical and computer science, computing, mechanical, chemical and material science engineering.