Ep 08: The Relevance of Community and Bouncing Back from Failures with Civil Engineer Dr. Erica Fischer
Women were long steered away from STEM fields, including engineering, as it was thought that women did not possess the analytical skills to excel.
Girls and women are systematically tracked away from science and math throughout their educations, limiting their training and options to go into these fields as adults. The gender gaps are particularly high in some of the fastest-growing and highest-paid jobs of the future, like computer science and engineering.
Join me in this episode as I interview Dr. Erica Fischer, one of the small percentage of women working in the civil engineering and construction industry. Erica is a Structural Engineering Professor, Earthquake Reconnaissance Disaster Researcher, and a licensed Professional Engineer in the states of California and Washington. She got her Bachelor's Degree from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from Purdue University. Prior to becoming a professor at Oregon State University, she was a structural engineer in New York and Seattle where she focused mainly on renovations and retrofits of existing buildings.
She has served in a number of positions throughout Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), from president of the Purdue EERI student chapter to becoming one of the founding members of the EERI Younger Members Committee and Virtual Earthquake Reconnaissance Team.
Erica strives to provide opportunities for younger members of the organization to have a voice so they can take active roles and expand the awareness of their committee.
In this conversation, Erica walks us through the things she does as an engineer and the research projects she’s currently working on. Erica shares her experience being the only woman in her engineering class and how she was treated when she entered the male-dominated engineering workplace.
Find out how having a community helped her bounce back from failures and how she didn’t succumb to the roles and expectations society has placed on her and on women in general.
Episode Highlights:
- Why looking young as a woman can sometimes be challenging in a workplace dominated by men
- Erica talks about the percentage of females working in the engineering industry
- The importance of imagination and why it should be taught early
- Why you should maintain your individuality
- Dealing with imposter syndrome
- Why Erica decided to shift from industry into the academia
- Erica’s disaster research project
- Learning to fail and then bouncing back again
- Why you should be in a community of like-minded people who lift you up
Connect with Erica
- Twitter @erica_fischer
- Erica Fischer - website
- Learn more about Erica and her work at EERI 👉 here
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