STEM identity is a quantitative indicator for measuring students’ behaviors on educational and professional persistence in STEM field (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Hazari et al., 2010, 2013; Unfried et al., 2014). This indicator is developed based on four dimensions, including interest, competence, recognition, and performance, and was found to accurately predict students’ intentions to complete and choose a STEM career. HUG undergraduates have lower STEM identities when compared with non-HUG peers, and thus they had lower interests in STEM careers and did not recognize themselves as engineering or physics students (Hazari et al., 2010; Godwin et al., 2013). The Persistence Research in Science and Engineering (PRiSE) survey project on undergraduate identities showed that 50% of men considered themselves as physicists, compared with only 30% for women (Hazari et al., 2013). One factor contributing to this disparity is identity regulation. Students are more likely to connect with disciplines that fit their actual or desired identity and avoid areas that they consider different from themselves. Since STEM fields are often associated with masculinity (Master et al., 2016; Cheryan et al., 2017), HUG students are often perceived as being a misfit between their gendered self-concept and the image of STEM (Kessels et al., 2014). Another factor for low STEM identity is due to the low self-efficacy beliefs of HUG students, that is, they possess lower confidence in their ability to conduct a STEM project or research (Miles and Naumann, 2021; de las Cuevas et al., 2022; Andrews et al., 2021). Women in physics class have lower science self-efficacy than their men counterparts. Moreover, women with “A” grades often had comparable physics self-efficacy perceptions to men with “C” grades (Marshman et al., 2018).

The fact that HUG students possess lower STEM identity and efficacy beliefs is most likely due to the lack of opportunities to develop their STEM identity. HUG students tend to be more passive in answering questions during lectures and are less likely to be encouraged to become researchers by faculty (Hazari et al., 2010). Kahle et al. (1993) indicated that men students engaged more in the typical classroom interactions, such as asking and answering questions. Thus, women typically received less attention and recognition from lecturers, and had fewer prior experience on conceptual understanding than their men counterparts (Kahle et al., 1993; Chambers and Andre, 1997). In addition, negative stereotypes play a key role in the students’ motivation to pursue a STEM career. For instance, women students’ self-confidence is likely to be influenced by beliefs that men generally perform better in STEM than women (Maries et al., 2018). Therefore, women students are more likely to assume that they need to make extra efforts to succeed in STEM fields and undergo stress to demonstrate their skills in order to be valued equally as men students (Marshman et al., 2018).

Department climate is shaped by the nature and quality of interactions between students, faculty members, and staff. The “chilly climate” refers to the inequities that may seem trivial, but frequently occur. However, cumulatively, these inequities can lead people to doubt the value of their contributions (Lee and Mccabe, 2021). HUG students usually face additional difficulties of integration with their academic community and experience chilly department climates. They—especially those who do not fit in the cisgender binary—experience more harassment, discrimination, and professional devaluation in their departments (Cech and Waidzunas, 2021). STEM departments seldom provide the environment for students to feel safe to be out about their gender identities, including the lack of gender-neutral bathrooms and binary gender options (man or woman) on school forms (Woodford et al., 2017). Moreover, since STEM is primarily dominated by cisgender men, the nature of cis-normative language within the department causes people from underrepresented groups to make additional efforts to blend in or resist the culture (Miller et al., 2021). An interview study revealed that HUG students felt uncomfortable about gender-specific language, such as often addressing each other as “bro,” “dude,” or “guy” in casual conversations and having male-dominated jokes (Vaccaro, 2012). HUG students further reported that they tend to dress less feminine to avoid harassment from their peers, and believed this made them easier to fit in to the departments (Miller et al., 2021). Overall, this unwelcoming and chilly atmosphere and pressure to conform gives HUG students the impression that “STEM is not for me.” The failure of integrating with the academic community decreases the motivations of HUG students to stay in STEM fields.

The difficulties HUG graduate students face are similar to HUG undergraduates. However, advisor–advisee relationship is one of the aspects that differs between HUG undergraduate and graduate students. Unlike undergraduates, graduate students have few opportunities to meet peers through lectures and student organizations. Instead, they spend more time and effort being involved in professional organizations, participate in seminars, and on- or off-campus social events. Since these activities vary between research fields, the research career roadmaps of graduate students are typically guided by their advisors. Building a strong and bonding advisor–advisee relationship introduces additional opportunities and interactions to integrate with the academic community and helps keep HUG graduate students in the STEM field. Studies have shown that students who are advised by a faculty member with close research interests or who share similar personal interests tend to form more successful advisor–advisee relationships (Lovitts, 2002). Since HUG faculty members are also underrepresented in most STEM departments, they usually spent 2 hours more per week on mentoring students than their colleagues (Misra et al., 2011). Therefore, HUG students have difficulties finding an advisor who has the time and experience to help them overcome the challenges they face.

The lower STEM identities of HUG students and their experiences with a chilly atmosphere lead to HUG student difficulties in constructing their research career roadmaps when pursuing STEM degrees. These roadblocks also limit their opportunities to build their networking villages in departments, professional organizations, and meetings throughout their research careers. Therefore, HUG students may feel disappointed by the learning experiences and explore opportunities outside STEM fields. Moreover, HUG students were reported to experience health difficulties, including insomnia, stress from work, and depression, more frequently than their non-HUG peers due to chilly atmosphere (Cech and Waidzunas, 2021). HUG students felt less like they “fit in” in STEM fields as they faced more severe, frequent, and often invisible microaggressions when interacting with others, such as professional devaluation, additional harassment, and discrimination during conversations (Campbell-Montalvo et al., 2022b). Consequently, HUG students exhibit lower persistence and sense of belonging to STEM fields than their non-HUG colleagues. For example, around 30% of HUG students and faculty were not comfortable with STEM department climates, and seriously considered leaving their institution due to negative experiences and perceptions (Farrell et al., 2017; Conrad et al., 2021). Moreover, non-binary and transgender students were 7% more likely to transfer to non-STEM programs (Hughes, 2018), and a longitudinal survey study on the degree completion of graduate students showed that HUG graduate students in the typically-men PhD programs (with less than 38.5% women students in the average cohort) are ∼12% less likely to graduate from the PhD program than men students (Fouad et al., 2017; Bostwick and Weinberg, 2022; Maloy et al., 2022).

The COVID-19 pandemic placed additional challenges on HUG students because of online learning and working environments. During the pandemic, HUG students, especially LGBTQ + students, were constantly discriminated against and harassed by their peers due to the rise of TERF wars (Pearce et al., 2020), or isolated with their unsupportive families (Fish et al., 2020). However, access to supportive systems within the university, such as interaction with affirming friends, therapists, advisors, teachers, and student organizations, largely decreased (Thanawala et al., 2022). For example, 30% of HUG students felt unsafe and missed at least 1 day of school monthly, according to a School Climate 2022 survey, and suffered from psychological distress four times greater than non-HUG students (Salerno and Boekeloo, 2022). Furthermore, women reported more disruptions to publishing academic papers and focusing on their research studies than men due to their expected family responsibilities (Shah et al., 2021). They are likely to cut their work hours to take care of sick family members or help their children with homework and keep them focused during school hours (Modestino, 2020). Studies showed that the research productivity of women, especially early-career HUGs, has been affected more than non-HUGs (Squazzoni et al., 2021; Paul et al., 2022). The proportion of first authors who are women on COVID-19 related papers was 20% lower than on papers published before the pandemic in medical journals (Andersen et al., 2020). This phenomenon has not been observed in the space science community yet, and may require additional statistical analysis in future studies (Wooden and Hanson, 2022).

Considering the challenges that HUG students face when pursuing a career in STEM fields and the additional burdens caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is extremely important for us not only to detail the disparities between HUG and non-HUG students, but also to implement pragmatic solutions and take actions for a more inclusive and supportive environment in our academic community. These actions should take place not only at events held by professional organizations, departments, and student organizations, but also at lectures and during office hours. Liemohn (2022) suggested stopping using bro language and stoping having male-dominated jokes in casual conversations. Instead, we use gender-neutral language, such as using “singular they” in publications and presentations.

Several other actions were recommended in supporting HUG students, including panel discussions, safe zone training, and mentoring programs. Surprisingly, Hazari et al. (2010) pointed out that inviting HUG speakers and introducing HUG scientists during lectures had little impact on the increase in STEM identities. It would be beneficial to have an explicit discussion of the issues of underrepresentation faced by minorities in HUG, such as the gender-bias experienced by HUG scientists (Hazari et al., 2010). A mini workshop series of panel discussions was reported to have a significant impact on underrepresented students by providing resources and opportunities that were not accessible individually (Artiles et al., 2021; Connor et al., 2021). Furthermore, holding safe zone training sessions within departments or professional organizations educates people about terminologies of gender minorities and the biases they experience, as well as the coming out process (Farrell et al., 2017; Miles and Naumann, 2021). The training sessions are meant to engage everyone to be aware of the difficulties HUG students face and form a supportive structure and culture of allies for HUGs (Miller et al., 2021). In addition, students who used support and mentoring services were found to have lower attrition rates (Madara and Cherotich, 2016). Meeting with a STEM professional who shared similar backgrounds greatly encouraged HUG students to pursue a STEM career, and helped them feel like they belonged in their academic community (Kricorian et al., 2020).

We distributed an institutional review board approved pre-study survey to all ECE students in the first week of the Fall 2022 semester to identify the difficulties HUG students face compared to non-HUG students. The survey is designed to collect students’ current states regarding their STEM and research identities, knowledge of available research resources and opportunities, attitudes toward STEM careers, and psychological safety in the department. Results will provide the department with insight into how to better direct HUG students towards STEM research careers. To evaluate the impact of the HUG Initiative, a similar survey will be distributed to HUG students at the end of the academic year to assess how the panel discussions and networking events impact their understandings of research career pathways.

HUG Initiative will hold panel discussions, mentoring program, and town hall meetings, which will accommodate 20–30 students at each event. During the panel discussions, HUG Initiative will invite panelists to give advice on how to find research opportunities, and share their experiences in research skill development, especially the challenges they have encountered before. Various topics, including undergraduate research opportunities, graduate school application, graduate student orientation, research job searching in academia and industry, and mental health will be addressed. Planned topics and corresponding panelists are detailed on the left side of Figure 2. These panel discussions aim to help HUG students gain understanding and motivation toward having research careers, and further build connections with panelists for future opportunities of advancement. Similarly, the mentoring program was launched during the semester to pair graduate students with undergraduates for one-on-one near-peer mentoring on graduate school applications and research experiences.