This research focused on understanding how women can achieve feelings of belonging in university makerspaces to inform the design decisions of makerspaces in the future to further gender equity in STEM. In this study, we access makerspaces across universities in the United States and understand how they can be used as an effective model to supplement engineering education for underrepresented students to create a sense of belonging. 

This was an independent project I developed, obtained a grant for and executed over the summer of 2016. I performed thirty interviews and observations across six four-year universities in the United States in order to understand how participants felt as if their makerspace supported or limited feelings of belonging by interacting with their peers and faculty/staff in the physical space and using social technologies.