Folks Works to Fight Discrimination in STEM Careers

ECE professor and University of Arizona senior vice president for academic affairs Liesl Folks is the principal investigator on a new collaboration that is helping women in STEM address discrimination. In a recent interview with KVOA, Folks discussed the NAVIGATE Project, which is a collaboration between the University of Arizona, University at Buffalo and Cal Poly.

"The project was born out of an observation that a great many women in the STEM disciplines have their career plans derailed by issues of gender bias, discrimination, or harassment and of course, worse, actual sexual misconduct," Folks said. 

The NAVIGATE Project aims to increase the number of female STEM graduates and the number of women in leadership positions in STEM disciplines. 

"What we wanted to do was come up with a program that will help students, graduate women in the STEM disciplines, to both analyze the situations that they're facing, and see it as a career dilemma, and then strategize around 'How do I get past this,' you know? Navigate past this hurdle, but still end up where I want to go for my career, not end up being pushed off path," Folks said.