Latino engineering faculty in the United States
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IN MATERIALS SCIENCE & ENGINEERING
Latino engineering faculty in the United States Gerardo N. Arellano, Oscar Jaime-Acuña, and Olivia A. Graeve Feature Editor: Lynnette D. Madsen
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ngineering research is the catalyst of discovery that fuels the development of innovative products and services, in turn driving economic growth and global competitiveness. This innovation thrives on the capacities, talents, and experiences of people from various diverse backgrounds; however, engineering itself has a diversity problem on many fronts. One critical concern is the low participation of ethnic minorities in engineering research, an example being US-born Latinos. Latinos are defined as individuals of Mexican, South American (including Brazil), Central American, and Caribbean origin residing in the United States. By contrast, the term Hispanic, as defined by the US government, refers to Spanish-speaking persons living in the United States, especially of Latin American origin, but also including persons from Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. Statistics show that the participation of US Latinos in engineering fields, including materials science and engineering, is dismal. The latest US census data (from 2016) indicate that 17.8% of the total US population is Hispanic or Latino.1 However, Hispanics only represent 4.9% of engineering doctoral graduates and 9.8% of engineering bachelor’s graduates, according to the 2016 S&T (Science & Technology) Indicators published by the National Science Foundation (see Figure 1).2 Additional data reveal that Hispanics hold approximately 3.6% of faculty appointments in engineering.3 However, scant attention is given to Latino faculty members’ birth country and other demographic characteristics. Thus, we decided to investigate characteristics, including academic rank, gender, and country of origin, of Latino engineering faculty at universities within the United States.
While the total number of Latino engineering faculty as of 2016 is close to 600, only 48 of the total number were born in the United States. The root of the problem is in the extreme lack of pipeline of US-born Latinos into doctoral programs and academic careers.4–7 Involving Latinos in the production of scientific and engineering leadership roles within US universities should be considered a national priority, as we should cultivate reliable domestic talent. The good news is that there are opportunities at research-intensive universities to work closely with the community, government, and industry to develop scalar institutional capacities in this area. Ignoring this issue will result in a continued lack of role models for US-born Latino youth, who look for successful examples in academia among people who share their heritage. For our analysis, we collected information on Latino engineering faculty from all universities that have a College of Engineering or School of Engineering listed by the US News & World Report National Universities Ranking. This analysis includes all universities in the 50 states, excluding facu
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