Shannon Gilmartin
Shannon K. Gilmartin, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab and Adjunct Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Her expertise is in education and workforce development in science and engineering fields. She has particular interest in access to and equity in engineering education and practice. She studies people’s pathways into the engineering workforce and advancement to senior leadership positions in technology settings.
Shannon’s publications appear in such journals as Journal of Engineering Education, Journal of Research on Adolescence, Journal of Research on Science Teaching, Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, The Journal of Higher Education, and the International Journal of Engineering Education. From 2015-19, with Sheri Sheppard and Carol Muller, she co-taught the first course in Stanford’s School of Engineering to be cross-listed with Stanford’s Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies programs: "Expanding Engineering Limits: Culture, Diversity, and Equity” (ENGR117/217, FEMGEN117/217, CSRE 117/217). In 2018, her research with Anthony Antonio, Samantha Brunhaver, Helen Chen, and Sheri Sheppard was published in the National Bureau of Economics Research volume U.S. Engineering in the Global Economy (The University of Chicago Press). Most recently, she co-led, with Sara Jordan-Bloch, the SV Leadership Lab’s Corporate Program Meeting on Early Career Pathways. She is currently conducting an ongoing SV Lab study of gender, race, and work assignments in technology companies. She has long collaborated with many undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, research scientists, and faculty members across a range of disciplines in large-scale studies of student experiences, workforce trends, and women’s and men’s school and employment patterns.
Shannon received her B.A. at Stanford University in 1994, and her M.A. (1999) and Ph.D. (2003) at University of California, Los Angeles. She then spent three years at the California Institute of Technology conducting postdoctoral research on the science identities of middle and high school students across diverse school districts in Southern California. She has consulted for a wide range of organizations, including the American Chemical Society, Stanford University School of Medicine, and University of Alaska School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.
Select Recent Publications
Sterling, A. D., M. E. Thompson, S. Wang, A. Kusimo, S. Gilmartin, and S. Sheppard. 2020. The confidence gap predicts the gender pay gap among STEM graduates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 202010269; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2010269117
Gilmartin, S. K, M. E. Thompson, E. Morton, Q. Jin, H. L. Chen, A. Colby, and S. D. Sheppard. 2019. Entrepreneurial intent of engineering and business undergraduate students. The Journal of Engineering Education, 108, 316–336.
Rieken, B., S. Shapiro, S. Gilmartin, and S. D. Sheppard. 2019, January 4. How Mindfulness Can Help Engineers Solve Problems. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/01/how-mindfulness-can-help-engineers-solve-problems
Steuer-Dankert, L., S. K. Gilmartin, C. B. Muller, C. Dungs, S. Sheppard, and C. Leicht-Scholten. 2019. Expanding Engineering Limits—A concept for socially responsible education of engineers. International Journal of Engineering Education, 35 (2), 658–673.
Wullert, K., S. Gilmartin, and C. Simard. 2019, April 16. The Mistake Companies Make When They Use Data to Plan Diversity Efforts. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/04/the-mistake-companies-make-when-they-use-data-to-plan-diversity-efforts
Gilmartin, S.K., A.L. Antonio, S.R. Brunhaver, H.L. Chen, and S.D. Sheppard. 2018. Career plans of undergraduate engineering students: Characteristics and contexts. In R. Freeman and H. Salzman (Eds.), U.S. Engineering in the Global Economy (pp. 49-86). National Bureau of Economic Research. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Gilmartin, S. K., A. Shartrand, H. Chen, C. Estrada, and S.D. Sheppard. 2016. Investigating entrepreneurship program models in undergraduate engineering education. International Journal of Engineering Education, 32(5A), 2048-2065.
