Individual: Fueling the STEM Pipeline by Mentoring Across the Age Span

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Dr. Maja Mataric received her Ph.D. in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from MIT in 1994. She is Professor of Computer Science and Neuroscience, and Pediatrics Director of the Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems, Co-Director of the Robotics Research Lab, and Senior Associate Dean for Research at the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California. Dr. Mataric has established a mentoring philosophy that encompasses the need to encourage students continuously as they progress in their educations. Her stated philosophy is that mentoring must be viewed as a pipeline process, in which role models and training opportunities are provided from as early as possible and the pipeline is continually fueled. The pipeline mentoring program is based on the established literature about critical times for capturing interest and recruiting women and underrepresented students into STEM areas. To build the pipeline, the comprehensive spectrum of mentoring activities performed to date span: K-12 STEM outreach and teacher training, undergraduate student mentoring toward placement in graduate programs, graduate and postdoctoral student mentoring and placement in academic positions, peer mentoring of female faculty, mentoring of junior faculty in engineering, and developing a culture of mentoring at USC. Dr. Mataric's mentoring programs have resulted in new courses and programs at the K-12 level that have trained generations of teachers and students and continue to recruit generations of inner-city at-risk students into STEM topics. Approaches have yielded the recruitment of underrepresented groups at each level, from all-girls elementary school teams winning robotics contests at the state level, to outstanding placement of Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows in academic positions, to outstanding outcomes in female faculty mentoring leading toward nationally competitive research grants, to developing novel mentoring programs with impact across the entire university. The programs have resulted in the placement of Ph.D. students in minority serving universities and of Ph.D. students from underrepresented groups (women and African Americans) in top research universities in the US and world-wide. The programs have also established a role-modeling and networking pipeline between the K-12 inner city institutions, USC undergraduates, Ph.D. students, and faculty. Dr. Mataric's mentoring programs have effectively aided in the recruitment and retention of women faculty in engineering at USC and have had a significant impact on institutional-wide cultural change.