Daquan Dennis
City College of New York
Writing for Engineering ENGL 21007 D2[20174]
Sara Jacobson
March 25, 2024
Women in Engineering has been a sensitive topic for a long time now. But the significant achievements many women have made can’t go unseen. The Report “Best Practices of Successful Academic Research Labs [Women in Engineering]”, talks about many different ways that women have educated other researchers and come up with new ideas. In this review, we will be seeing if this report follows the Eight Basic Elements, which are, title, abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, and references. The first page of the PDF talks about two women by the name of Nancy M. Amato and Allison M. Okamura. These two were winners of the “IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM) during the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.” Nancy and Allison both excel in the creation of robotics where Nancy became vice president for Member Activities for the RAS and served as program chair for the 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) and Robotics. Allison however was a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University, California. So far this lab report has discussed two significant individuals and discusses highly of them. Leading to an amazing, strong, and well-thought-out introduction. The Report does not seem to include a visible abstract. The writer most likely decided to leave out the abstract because they thought their title was more than enough to grab the reader’s attention. Putting an abstract would just be completely unnecessary work for the writers of this report. But with that being said, the title is very clear and straight to the point so the reader can get a general basis of what the article is going to be about.
The second page discusses two more significant women in the engineering space. These people are Jeannette Bohg and Ilana Nisky. Jeannette is pretty similar to Allison in the sense that they are both professors at Stanford. Her interests are robotic manipulation, computer vision, and machine learning, which is pretty similar to what I’m trying to research at this college. Ilana Nisky however, while focusing on similar stuff related to mechanical engineering, actually gets most of their labs supported by the Israeli Science Foundation, the Israel– U.S. Binational Science Foundation, and the Ministry of Science and Technology, meaning her research is widely accepted there. Jeannette and Nisky were asked questions related to their research such as “When you began as an assistant professor, there were many things to balance. How did you tackle learning about new research directions, exploring new problems, and starting a new research lab?” (Shibboleth Authentication Request, n.d.). Where they would reply by saying they either rely on their students because they don’t have the time to sit down and invest in the study, or being involved in big groups of individuals. They also tend to rely on their students because even the teachers and instructors themselves realize the limitations of their abilities. Understanding this helps us better understand the limitations of these researchers as well as their teachings. Students being able to help their professors can lead to both sides better gathering the information related to the engineering process. Generating new ideas that can help better and expand the experiment into something greater as a whole. This is important in the field of engineering because having partners who are clueless and don’t exactly fathom what is happening throughout the process could hinder the ability to get the project done. This could result in the failure of everyone involved so it is important to not hold others down as well. Engineering is a collaborative effort. Discussing is being had constantly throughout the process, which is severely important
The third page discusses how instructors handle their daily lives in the lab and the challenges with diversity in the field. Amato states in the article, “Each student has his or her strengths and working styles. The role of the advisor is to try to help the students discover these and learn how to achieve their best. Being upfront with students about your expectations is crucial. I have a crash course that introduces the students to the research infrastructure and prior results developed in my lab. This allows them to begin working with the senior graduate students, which has been successful in getting new students integrated into the group” (Shibboleth Authentication Request, n.d.). When it comes to teaching and instructing in the engineering field, it is important to understand key aspects such as your student’s abilities and other factors as well. This will determine if they will become an amazing engineering major, no matter their race or gender. Okamura further discusses the role of diversity in the engineering space after being asked a question by Ram. Okamura’s response was as follows, “Diverse groups initiate more cross-cutting ideas in the lab. The human component of my research in human–robot interaction is greatly enhanced by the diverse group of students I work with. A lot of creative ideas are brought out, and my diverse lab helps me achieve my outreach goals. It’s also fun to meet more people and learn new things”. Diversity in the engineering space is crucial for the growth of every member involved. Diversity helps drastically improve and work on aspects of the research as well as encourages others to get out of their comfort zone and engage in social interaction with their fellow working peers. The more people that work in the engineering spaces, especially from different backgrounds, the better the research of the entire experiment will be as a whole.
To further understand the importance of diversity in the engineering space we need to see what it looks like. On page 140 of the article, we can see Amato interacting with her students of different origins in a photograph. All of them look to be from different ethnic backgrounds as well based on their complexion. Many different cultures view engineering differently, some of them even view it as a necessity in our everyday lives that needs to be expanded on for the human race to grow, develop, and evolve into something greater than it already is. Moving on to the final page, Amato states that she is creating and making it a priority to provide opportunities for under-represented groups of people. “I have made it a priority to provide career development and mentoring opportunities to women and others from underrepresented groups. I do this. I find it very rewarding, but, importantly, because I believe strongly that our research community and our society as a whole will be best served when we have full participation from all. We will do better work and we will serve society better when we are all engaged in working together. And it will be a lot more fun as well.”(Shibboleth Authentication Request, n.d.). Based on Amato’s response, she also believes diversity is crucial and will help build a stronger bond in the engineering space. Everyone will be coming together as one to work on hard tasks that can’t be done alone while also having fun with one another. Engineering is the perfect space to bring people together. Making the world more known to these underrepresented groups also empowers them. Women, LGBTQ members, and people of minority races can be viewed in a different light in the media. That as a result will encourage other members of the minority groups to try getting into engineering as well because they will feel respected and appreciated there. Okamura, Nisky, and Bohg all represent the strength of diversity in the engineering space and it needs to be respected by many.
To conclude, the writers of the article end off by saying, “To peers: If you hear a good idea expressed by a female colleague, echo it and remember to give credit. To department leaders: Hire more female faculty; the students will follow.” (Shibboleth Authentication Request, n.d.). This conclusion is very straightforward and to the point, very strong. The article did not follow ALL the Eight Basic Elements. It followed a lot of them though, such as title, introduction, discussion, conclusion, and references. This article most likely did not decide to use the other elements because they were trying to send a message that anyone, no matter the background, has a space in engineering. Women have faced adversity and struggle for many generations and to finally find a competitive field where people are accepting them with open arms is a crucial step in the right direction for us as people. It would have been nice to understand what type of experiments specifically the students and professors were working on at the university to see the absolute capabilities of minority groups in the engineering world, as well as, to understand the struggles of not having people to help you throughout your engineering career. The title of the article is incredibly strong and straight to the point and allows the reader to know what the text is about. The introduction introduces two prominent female figures in the engineering spaces so we can sympathize and understand their struggles but also their achievements. There is a lot of discussion between the 4 girls throughout the entire article where they are asked questions and they reply by giving their honest opinions and answers. As for references, the teachers applied photos to help further their proof that the engineering space is a space that should openly welcome diversity.
Reflection
Daquan Dennis
City College of New York
Writing for Engineering ENGL 21007 D2[20174]
Sara Jacobson
March 25, 2024
To reflect on my essay, I used a lot of my peer, Sajid Hossain’s constructive criticism to help me improve on what I didn’t have in the first draft. This includes a proper cover page, being vague in some sections and not labeling my headings properly with the numbers at the top right. He also told me what words I should replace and what parts needed quotation marks as well as told me some parts were fine as they are. Overall this lab report analysis was very confusing for me because I have never done anything like this, let alone ever did an assignment in APA format. Having to learn a new format for my writing can become pretty confusing but I must know it for the future so I can improve. After writing this essay I have also concluded that engineering needs to be the most diverse job to get the best results. Many people grow up from different origins so as a result, they will view and understand engineering differently than anyone you’ve ever seen. Though the author never followed all of the basic writing elements for their article that we discussed in class, I still think the article is very powerful and portrays a giant message that keeps the reader engaged throughout the entire story. Things I believe I need to improve on for future assignments include understanding how to structure the APA format better. I want to be able to structure my paragraphs as well as my quotations better so It’s not as sloppy in the future. As a result of this assignment, I have also begun looking into lab reports so I can understand how they work because I want an engineering job in the future. Throughout this job, I am going to be writing a lot so I must know how to do it to the best of my abilities for the best possible job opportunities. I now understand that the main purpose of the peer review was to show that we NEED our partners to succeed in the course because without the feedback from Sazid, I would be completely lost with the assignment.
