Associate Professor, Department of Humanities New Jersey Institute of Technology, Director, Murray Center for Women in Technology, USA.

Nancy Steffen-Fluhr is an Associate Professor of Humanities and Director of the Murray Center for Women in Technology at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). She is the Principal Investigator on the university’s NSF Advance grant, a project that has explored the use of social network analysis to affect institutional change and ensure the full participation of women in academic science and engineering.

Professor Steffen-Fluhr discussed how an understanding of academic network data can be used to support women faculty researchers, diminishing their potential isolation. In particular, she demonstrated how network mapping tools can enhance traditional approaches to mentoring and institutional transformation, allowing faculty to identify efficient pathways to novel information and potential collaborators--and allowing administrators to track subtle changes in organizational structure as they unfold over time.