What we offer
Individualized professional development and career support through our STEM mentorship network for women
Women are underrepresented not only in US higher education but also in STEM careers. There is a retention problem in higher education with one study finding that 12% of non-mentored engineers left their major after one year. In STEM careers, there is an even larger retention problem with women making up just 28% of the workforce and an even smaller percentage of managerial positions.
Our solution is a virtual community and a mentorship program with in-person programming that cultivates a network, creates career opportunities, and fosters a sense of belonging for women in STEM.
Our program is designed to meet our mentees’ needs, which starts with letting mentees select their mentors. We optimize that process with an algorithm so that as many get their top choice as possible. Our program matches academic mentees who are undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral associates, and research staff with academic and industry mentors and enables flexible scheduling among mentorship pairs. We offer group programming and monthly themed conversation guides to facilitate productive conversations in their mentorship meetings.
In 2023, we served a diverse group of mentees and mentors, including mentees from numerous STEM backgrounds, many of whom are from nontraditional and underrepresented backgrounds.
Our community and tailored mentorship program address three pillars of recruitment, retention, and success.
We have channeled mentees into internships and full-time positions at our mentors’ companies. Our mentee-driven program structure led to 100% of our participants reporting to be likely or very likely to recommend our program. We expect that sustained interactions and exposure to companies will improve assimilation of new employees. Our program helps mentees gain a better understanding of academic and professional roles and the skills they need to acquire to succeed in them, and they will have a support system in place before they even step into their offices on Day 1.
Looking to the future: Growing our community beyond UT Austin
STEM Muse's most recent program launched in September 2023 had more than 350 mentorship pairs. Ultimately, STEM Muse is taking a top-down approach with the vision of being a national community of and for women in STEM supporting one another to rise through the ranks and become tomorrow's leaders of STEM professions.
