STEM Data Center

The pandemic has impacted children in lots of ways, but what about the long-term effects of increased screen time over these past two years? Morgan Stanley-funded researchers set out to find answers.

The United States is facing an unprecedented teacher shortage, with almost half (44%) of public schools reporting teacher vacancies this year. With fewer teachers renewing their contracts and resources slimming for students, US public schools’ ability to provide STEM education will continue to lag, further dulling the US’ competitive edge globally in science and engineering. The effort to fill this gap has so far mostly fallen on the public education system, but private tech companies should be equally as concerned about the long-term impact these shortages will have on the US STEM talent pipeline of tomorrow.

The recently passed CHIPS and Science Act promises billions of dollars in funding to support science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) research and production at government agencies, private companies, and colleges and universities across the U.S. While the legislation’s primary goal is to boost the nation’s ability to compete with China when it comes to cutting-edge technology and manufacturing, it also includes provisions to increase diversity in STEM education and the workforce and to promote socioeconomic development for underserved communities.

Women in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce face major obstacles — not only are they underrepresented and underpaid, but they also sometimes lack the confidence to assert their knowledge. The numbers are even more staggering for women of color in each distinct field.

Given the scarcity of Black female engineering faculty, Carlotta Berry, Ph.D., is a bit of a unicorn. The April 2021 Pew Research Center article “STEM Jobs See Uneven Progress in Increasing Gender, Racial and Ethnic Diversity” explains that the share of Black workers in STEM jobs hasn’t increased since 2016. “Black and Hispanic workers remain underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) workforce compared with their share of all workers, including in computing jobs, which have seen considerable growth in recent years.” An obvious contributor to this race and gender gap is the underrepresentation of both Black and female students in STEM related academic programs. “Black students are especially underrepresented in math, engineering and physical science degree programs; they earned no more than 5% of masters and research doctoral degrees in engineering or physical science during the 2017-2018 school year. Black students comprise just 3% to 4% of degree-recipients in mathematics at the masters level and above,” the article explains. “Women continue to be vastly underrepresented in the ranks of engineers and architects (15%), but their share has increased...