Career Mapping: Pathways to Reducing Attrition of Women of Color Engineers
Did you miss our recent webinar? Playback is available! The WCEC, in collaboration with WEPAN, presented a virtual session focused on building stronger and more sustainable career pathways for Women of Color in engineering.
Watch the webinar → Career Mapping: Pathways to Reducing Attrition of Women of Color Engineers
This webinar introduced a career mapping framework designed to identify key intervention points across the engineering journey. You’ll gain insights into the stages where support and strategy are most critical to retention, with a special focus on academia and leadership.
Whether you are navigating your own path or helping shape the future of the engineering workforce, this session offered actionable tools and perspectives you can use right away.
World Mental Health Day
At WCEC, we care about your work environment and your mental health. Engineers face demanding work environments, tight deadlines, and high-pressure situations, all of which can take a toll on their mental health if not properly addressed.
Every October 10th World Mental Health Day is honored by multiple organizations across the world. We want to share a few resources about mental health in engineering:
- Managing Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Engineering Workforce by WEBUILD STAFFING
- 7 ways to improve mental health in the engineering industry by Resilient People
- Mental Health Awareness: How to Maintain Your Mental Health as an Engineer by BMS Performance
- Mental health resources and hotlines: https://www.cdc.gov/mental-health/caring/index.html
Mark your calendar and join every year as we come together as leaders and as a supportive community to end the stigma that surrounds seeking help for mental health needs.
The Engineer Retention Playbook
This month we want to highlight a resource from the Women of Color in Engineering Resource Center. We host over 125 resources and continue to add more. Check out “The Engineer Retention Playbook” from Terminal, a 21-page guide packed with actionable strategies for retaining remote engineering talent.
It covers everything from thoughtful onboarding and autonomous leadership, to building a culture where mental health is openly prioritized and inclusion is intentionally cultivated.
The retention framework in this playbook is particularly relevant:
- It highlights the importance of inclusive leadership and measuring psychological safety that helps ensure voices and experiences that are often marginalized, feel seen and valued.
- It advocates for structuring work-life balance, autonomy, and recognition, all of which disproportionately affect women of color who often face systemic bias.
- It calls out mental health as central to retention by reminding us that remote, underrepresented, or minoritized professionals may face amplified isolation, burnout or stress.
If your aim is not just to recruit, but to retain talented women of color in engineering, whether in person, remote, or hybrid settings, this playbook offers concrete ideas to embed culture, equity and mental-well-being into your team practices.
Call for Participation
Consider presenting at an upcoming event! Member organizations offer the following opportunities for participation.
2026 IEEE POWER & ENERGY SOCIETY
CALL FOR PAPERS
Montreal, Quebec, Canada | Submissions close 10 November 2025
Theme: Powering the Digital Era
Upcoming WCEC Member Events
The WCEC shares numerous professional activities offered by our member organizations. Member organizations are committed to creating a supportive, encouraging, and inclusive environment for WOC in engineering. Find out more about their events and register to attend!
SHPE National Convention 2025
Philadelphia, PA | October 29-November 1, 2025
Join us for one of the largest annual gatherings of top STEM talent where professional development and unparalleled opportunities await. At this signature SHPE event, experience inspiring keynotes, engaging workshops, and dynamic networking with industry leaders and organizations. Get ready for exciting competitions and the ever-popular Career Fair featuring over 250 exhibitors!
SACNAS 2025 NDISTEM
Columbus, Ohio | October 31 - November 1, 2025
The NDiSTEM Conference is the largest multidisciplinary and multicultural STEM event in the country, a true celebration of science, culture, and community that serves, equips, and energizes participants for their academic and professional paths in STEM.
2025 AIChE Annual Meeting
Boston, Massachusetts | November 2-6, 2025
The 2025 AIChE® Annual Meeting unites academic and industry researchers at all career stages seeking innovation and professional development. Connect with a diverse audience to gain insights on the latest research, network with experts, and advance your career.
NSBE’s 2025 Region IV Fall Regional Conference
Covington, Kentucky | November 7-November 9, 2025
This weekend is your chance to engage in dynamic workshops, impactful programming, and powerful connections with your NSBE family from across the region. Whether you are a first-time attendee or a seasoned conference vet, FRC is where we come to level up.
ACEC Firm of the Future: Workforce Study – Engineering’s Talent Pipeline and Future Demand
Online | November 12, 2025 | 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
The engineering industry is confronting one of the most significant workforce challenges in its history. This session will present new findings from the recent Firm of the Future study on Workforce, which combines national demographic data and original research to provide a comprehensive view of the engineering talent pipeline. Drawing on sources such as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the study examines trends in the number of workers entering the profession, retirements expected over the coming decade, and the role of immigration in shaping the availability of skilled engineers.
ASM ISTFA 2025
International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis (ISTFA)
Pasadena, California | November 16-20, 2025
As the premier event for the microelectronics failure analysis community, ISTFA brings together leading experts, industry professionals, and researchers to share insights, innovations, and methodologies in the field. This year’s theme, “Scaling Beyond Moore’s Law: Heterogeneous Computing and Advanced Packaging,” reflects the industry’s evolving landscape, where traditional scaling approaches are being challenged by the integration of diverse technologies and packaging strategies.
AWWA Engineered for Endurance: Building Resilience - FREE Webinar
Sponsored and Presented by DIPRA
Online | November 20, 2025 | 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Objectives:
- Identify key engineering decisions that impact the long-term durability of drinking water infrastructure.
- Evaluate material options and their performance in different environmental conditions, including corrosive and high-risk areas.
- Analyze case studies where water systems have withstood severe challenges such as seismic events and wildfires.
November-December ASCE Events
ASCE offers a wide variety of educational programs, events, courses, conferences, and more. Explore the many ways to grow your knowledge, advance, and stay current with your professional career.
- Mechanically Stabilized Earth Walls- Understanding Fill Properties and Good Practices for Details
- Design of Metal Building Systems
- Two-Dimensional Modeling HEC-RAS
- Design and Strengthening of Shallow Foundations for Conventional and Pre-Engineered Buildings
Connecting You Locally To Pune, India
4-5 December 2025
Pune, India, often referred to as the “Oxford of the East,” is a thriving city known for its prestigious educational institutions, growing tech industry, and rich cultural heritage. With its unique blend of academic excellence and technological innovation, Pune is the ideal setting for the WE Local conference by the Society of Women Engineers.
Attendees can look forward to engaging sessions, inspiring keynote speakers, and opportunities to connect with peers and industry leaders. The event aims to empower participants at all stages of their careers by providing resources and support to enhance their professional growth and success in engineering fields.
71st Annual IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting
100 YEARS of FETs: SHAPING the FUTURE of DEVICE INNOVATIONS
San Francisco, CA | December 6-10, 2025
Focus Sessions:
- Focus Session #1 - Efficient AI Solutions: Architecture, Circuit, and 3D Integration Innovations for Memory and Logic
- Focus Session #2 - Beyond Silicon: The Invisible Revolution in Thin-Film Transistors
- Focus Session #3 - From P-bits to Qubits: Classical, Quantum-Inspired and True Quantum Technologies for Computing
- Focus Session #4 - Silicon Photonics for Energy Efficient AI Computing
AIAA SciTech Forum
Orlando, FL | January 12-16, 2026
AIAA SciTech Forum is the world’s largest event for aerospace research, development, and technology. It connects the international community of academic, industry, and government professionals in the civil, commercial, and national security sectors, along with leaders from adjacent industries, to address challenges and technical opportunities. The forum also connects technical experts with business, government, and academic leaders to envision, test, build, and problem solve, together.
2026 AAAS Annual Meeting
Phoenix, AZ | February 12-14, 2026
The 2026 AAAS Annual Meeting—Science @ Scale— invites us to celebrate discovery, probe evidence-based policy innovation, and embrace the challenge of implementing science and policy at scale for the benefit of society. We will highlight opportunities for communities of scientists, policy makers, and the citizenry to work together and explore how science and policy can be developed at scale for impact.
What is the WCEC?
The WCEC was created in 2021 as a partnership network of professional engineering societies and STEM-based companies. The WCEC is working to address systemic barriers that prohibit equitable work environments for women engineers of color.
Since its inception, the WCEC has grown to 29 organizations, created a shared vision and mission, and developed a strategic plan that will guide our efforts over the next few years. Thank you for your interest and support of our work. We hope that you will engage with the WCEC as we begin implementing the strategies aimed at tackling the major challenges facing women of color (WOC) in the engineering workplace.
Want to Get Involved?
Are you interested in having your organization become a member of the WCEC? Read our membership guidelines and fill out an application. Learn more.
While we don’t offer membership to individuals, we do want to grow the WCEC community! Soon we will begin collecting profiles of amazing WOC engineers for our Inspiring Leaders database. We are also collecting resources from our member organizations to place in our online Resource Center. We will be using this newsletter to get the word out as these activities get underway. Please share the WCEC with your network and invite others to sign up for our newsletter through the Contact Us form on the WCEC website.
