On February 16, 2001, the National Academy of Engineering quietly turned on a new website designed to encourage girls to consider engineering careers. Twenty years later, EngineerGirl is still going strong - inspiring a new generation of future engineers.
Rising to a Challenge
In the late 1990’s, only about 7% of engineers in the US were women. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) hosted a series of conferences to increase awareness and discuss how to bring more young women to the field. They chose to highlight the conference proceedings and participant profiles with a website.
The Celebration of Women in Engineering website existed as a group of specially designed pages in the NAE website. It served as a gateway to information and as inspiration to those seeking knowledge about engineering.
Users praised the site for its inclusivity and range of information, as well as for the quality of the links offered. The primary audience for the site, however, was college-age women and early-career engineers.
Looking for a New Audience
In 2000, the Celebration Website Advisory Group convened to guide the NAE in producing a site that would be attractive to middle school students – primarily girls. F. Suzanne Jenniches, then Vice President and General Manager of Automation and Information Systems at Northrop Grumman Corporation, chaired the group.
To get the message right, the NAE enlisted the help of middle school girls from across the US and Canada. This Girls Advisory Board helped choose the logo and design and provided valuable feedback on what should be included:
“I would like to know information about exactly what [engineers] do, how much they get paid, what kind of hours they work, how early to get started if I want to do this for a profession, and if this would be a worthwhile career.”
Destini from Rocky Mount, VA
“Maybe talk about different times when engineering was helpful. Also say what the world would be like without engineering.”
Alyssa from Duluth, MN
“I think maybe the site could have a way that girls can post questions for professional engineers”
Jayme from Katy, TX
EngineerGirl.org launched during National Engineers week in February 2001.
It included easy-to-read profiles of just over 70 women in engineering. Career descriptions provided salary, job, and education information for over a dozen different engineering fields. Fun Facts gave examples of everyday engineering marvels.
Later that year, the Celebration of Women in Engineering website was redesigned with a narrow focus on providing information and resources for parents, teachers, and engineers. This information was later removed from the NAE site and used to create the Get Involved section on EngineerGirl.
Starting an Annual Tradition
Caitlin Russell, Lauren Clark, Falon Grimes, and Julie Springrose - a team from Rosemont, PA - submitted the winning design in the 1st EngineerGirl contest.
To help promote the new site, the NAE sponsored the first EngineerGirl contest in 2001. This was a web design contest that challenged students to create a website that would encourage girls to think about engineering careers.
The 2002 contest asked students to design sites that celebrated female inventors. Anya Savikhin, a senior from Ames, IA, and Girl Scout Troop 2409 in New York took top honors for their entries that year.
In 2003, the annual EngineerGirl contest switched from a web design contest to a writing contest that asked students in grades 3-12 to respond to a new prompt each year. Winning contest entries have been published on the site ever since.
Many contestants have come back year after year, and some have been inspired to pursue engineering careers becasue of what they discovered in creating their entries.
Building Momentum
From 2001 to 2011, EngineerGirl slowly expanded to include more content. Women in different engineering careers added their profiles to the site and volunteered to answer questions submitted by visitors. The Ask an Engineer feature became a section as answers to questions started being posted publically so everyone could learn from them. Contest essays and other student submissions kept EngineerGirl close to its audience.
NAE fellows and interns created new fun facts, stories, and link collections - along with adding more images. Games and other resources were added throughout the site.
The NAE also teamed up with WGBH, Boston to create the Engineer Your Life website. This site encouraged high school girls to pursue engineering degrees in college. It shared pages with EngineerGirl, adding photo albums and unique day-in-the-life profiles of young, female engineers to both sites.
Engineer Your Life is no longer online, but much of its content lives on in EngineerGirl, including Ten Reasons You'll Love Engineering.
Preparing for Change
By 2010, EngineerGirl was outgrowing its old design and was ready to add several new features – including blogs and videos. By this time, the design and the technology used to support the site were so dated that even minor changes required a major effort.
The redesign took a year of fundraising, months of focus groups with a new Girls Advisory Board to get their input on features and design, several months working with technical and graphic design, and several more adding and polishing content. Finally, in October 2012, EngineerGirl relaunched with a completely new look and new content management system.
Gallery profiles could now be added in record time. Blogs provided new avenues for sharing stories about engineering.
The new design appealed to a wide audience - not just the target audience of middle school girls. Young women in high school and college were asking questions and responding to the site.
The renewed interest in EngineerGirl encouraged others to reach out as well. George Retelas, then an instructor at SAE Institute, worked with his digital art students to create the #EngineerGirlShow series of videos for the site that highlight amazing women in engineering to inspire the next generation.
Expanding Horizons
By 2017, the NAE team had expanded to also include a part-time community manager and part-time content producer. EngineerGirl began reaching out through Facebook and Twitter. Regular newsletters shared announcements and resources to a growing list of program supporters.
New sections appeared on the website, including historical profiles of trailblazing women, information on engineering design, and numerous blog series. Try This design challenges were added to encourage visitors to practice engineering design with items they could find around the house.
The most exciting development came in 2018 along with a new look for the site. That was the launch of the EngineerGirl Ambassadors program. Through this program, EngineerGirl reaches beyond the digital to support high school girls that create engineering experiences for younger girls in their communities.
Looking Forward
The percentage of engineers in the US who are women has increased to nearly 16%, but there is still work to be done.
EngineerGirl will continue to encourage girls to think about engineering careers and to enroll in math and science classes to increase their opportunities in the future.
None of this would have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors throughout the years. Thank you!