About Us
Research can do more than identify why inequality persists — it can produce knowledge and tools to do something about it. What motivates the Lab's work is the conviction that we can chart a sustainable path from scholarly insight to real-world impact, in service of a world where gender and gender identity are no longer barriers to opportunity.
Our Mission
The VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab at Stanford University generates foundational research to advance women's leadership by diagnosing barriers, developing and evaluating interventions to get beyond barriers, and disseminating research-based solutions by bridging the gap between research and practice.
We are conscious of the need to advance women across multiple marginalizations/identities/contexts, and strive for our research and interventions to be inclusive and intersectional. We commit to these practices in analyzing not only gender, but seeking to address other salient social identities like race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, ability, sexual orientation, nationality, etc.
Central to the Lab's mission is supporting the next generation of gender scholars and change agents, which we accomplish through our programming, resources, and partnerships.
Our Approach
The VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab was founded on the premise that solving entrenched social problems requires collaboration across the boundaries that typically separate academia from real-world impact. The Lab was launched as part of a campus-wide effort to leverage research and catalyze social change in academia, government, and workplaces. A key component of this effort is to bridge the gap between research and practice through partnerships — they keep research grounded in practice and practice informed by research, advancing our collective knowledge of what creates sustainable change.
The Lab's approach to organizational change is focused on working with change agents to co-design targeted, evidence-based solutions to the practices and processes where bias and inequality take hold. Once achieved, these doable changes can motivate further action and serve as building blocks toward larger organizational transformation.
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Our Story
In 2013, Stanford University provided seed funding for the creation of a center with a focus on women’s leadership to be led by Professor Shelley Correll and Lori Mackenzie, and to be incubated within The Clayman Institute for Gender Research. A dynamic research agenda and a vibrant corporate affiliate program were launched under Correll's leadership. In 2016, Correll received a $1.5 million gift from VMware for the Seeds of Change impact-research project - an educational research initiative designed to address barriers to women’s advancement in STEM and beyond. In 2018, the center was endowed by VMware, formally launching the new Lab and its mission to establish a long-term research agenda to accelerate change.
Vision for Change
