Professor Andrea Goldsmith has long been a champion of diversity and inclusion. While chair for an award selection committee, she saw data on gender and geographic diversity and realized that women and people from specific IEEE regions were rarely nominated for major awards. She also realized that implicit bias is likey to play a role in award committees decisions. Since then she has been raising awareness and educating peers about implicit bias.

Andrea leads the IEEE Board of Director's committee on diversity, inclusion, and professional ethics. The committee is aligned into three sub-committees working toward diversity and inclusion across IEEE; merging and raising awareness about IEEE's ethics and conduct codes; and establishing best practices for violations and reporting.

The sub-committee on diversity and inclusion has seen an increase in awareness across all of IEEE, and are witnessing more women and candidates from countries that had been underrepresented, receiving more nominations for IEEE awards.

Another positive result is the adoption of a new diversity statement in the IEEE policies. The updated policy reflects IEEE's longstanding commitment to ensure the engineering profession maximizes its impact and success by welcoming, engaging, and rewarding those who contribute to the field in an equitable manner.

IEEE Diversity Statement

"IEEE's mission to foster technological innovation and excellence to benefit humanity requires the talents and perspectives of people with different personal, cultural, and disciplinary backgrounds. IEEE is committed to advancing diversity in the technical profession, and to promoting an inclusive and equitable culture in its activities and programs that welcomes, engages and rewards those who contribute to the field without regard to race, religion, gender, disability, age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression."

We are proud of Andrea's work raising awareness and accountability for inclusion and diversity.

Prof. Goldsmith (lower left) and Rising Stars Workshop attendees, in the Packard Building atrium.