Design and implementation of professional development workshops that support women in STEM in Tanzania

Women, particularly at the graduate and professional levels, are underrepresented worldwide in STEM fields. Empowering younger women at the secondary- and undergraduate-level to pursue STEM as a career path, as well as providing organizational tools for women in STEM once at the university level, can help to improve their retention and long-term representation in STEM fields. To meet the aim of encouraging women in STEM globally, the women supporting women in the sciences (WS2) program was developed as between Northwestern University graduate Society of Women Engineers (NU GradSWE) and graduate women in STEM from several Tanzanian universities. The first objective of the WS2 program was to build professional development workshops for women in STEM in Tanzania focused on (1) career development and (2) organizing as women in STEM. To this end, two workshops were created collaboratively via virtual meetings between NU GradSWE and Tanzanian volunteers. The workshop content was then taught online to prospective facilitators from Tanzania, with the hope to pilot the workshops in Tanzania in early 2020. This talk will discuss the stages of professional development workshop creation, as well as anticipated outcomes and long-term goals of the program.