Thriving Stars Initiative

The MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science announced the Thriving Stars initiative in October 2021, a new effort to improve gender representation in MIT’s largest doctoral graduate program.

For the technology of tomorrow to meet the needs of all members of society, critical work is needed to close the gender gap in these crucial fields. With this new initiative, EECS aims to focus on increasing participation of female graduate students in the department, considering their wide-ranging influence as the scientific, technical, and policy leaders of tomorrow.

Thriving Stars will take a holistic, and concerted, approach to achieving this goal by providing support and information to students throughout every step of their PhD journey: from recruitment to admission all the way to graduation. The initiative will focus on efforts to navigate the application process and showcase research opportunities, interdisciplinary collaborations, and internships, as well as the diverse array of career opportunities accessible to doctoral EECS graduates. Thriving Stars will further strive not only to inspire women and other underrepresented genders to pursue graduate work at MIT, but also to build a more supportive and representative community for all graduate students.