EAGER: Celebrating the successes and identifying the obstacles faced by innovative and entrepreneurial underrepresented women of color

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This EAGER award conducts exploratory research on the successes and obstacles faced by innovative and entrepreneurial women of color in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). Situated within the intersectionality framework, this research will be conducted via in-depth interviews and focus groups with Underrepresented Women of Color (URWOC) innovators and entrepreneurs. This research defines Women of Color as those women who identify as African-American/Black, Latinx/Hispanic/Chicana, and Indigenous/Native Alaskan/ Native Hawaiian to better understand: (1) the background of URWOC founders and how they became interested in starting a STEM venture; 2) the strategies that URWOC owner/founders employed to start and persist in their ventures/innovations, choose to license, or sell their ventures/innovations; 3) similarities and differences in intersectionality across URWOC groups who are engaged in STEM innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E); 4) the unique experiences and challenges that URWOC endure in their I&E endeavors and 5) how to increase the number of URWOC in I&E with a focus on providing assistance to national initiatives aimed at diversifying underrepresented groups in I&E. This research will support the creation of theoretically robust yet practical frameworks for understanding the experiences of URWOC innovators and entrepreneurs in STEM. In turn, these insights will be used to integrate research with practice via the creation of outcomes that have the potential to engage a variety of stakeholders in co-creating solutions focused on increasing the number of URWOC in STEM Innovation & Entrepreneurship (I&E).This research project fills an important gap in synthesizing the literature on intersectionality and entrepreneurship and innovation in STEM for URWOCs and documenting the historical changes of the composition of URWOC in STEM I&E across the nation. Findings will inform and connect to more robust investigations of how key factors impact URWOC who are engaging in unique experiences that enable their success and enhance their ability to overcome typical issues of race, class, and gender oppression for URWOC in STEM I&E. Research findings will provide critical information for use by STEM education and STEM entrepreneurship researchers, stakeholders, and leadership n STEM in policy formation, assessment of the progress of diversity initiatives toward building a vibrant and robust community of URWOC.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.