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Hello! My name is Echo Panana, and I am a third-year Human-Centered Engineering student. I am also a queer student. Since coming out in high school, my queer identity has shaped nearly every part of my life. I was fortunate to have supportive friends growing up, but as I prepared to enter college, I knew that not everyone would be as accepting. At best, I could hope for my queerness to sponsor indifference. I have always been open about who I am, but in college, I realized that what I needed most wasn’t just acceptance — it was community. That’s what led me, during my first year at Boston College, to find and build that community within the QBIPOC discussion group on campus. 

During my second semester of sophomore year, my advisor introduced me to Professor Rodríguez-Simmonds, whose research was focused on the experiences of LGBTQ+ engineering students. After an informational interview, I applied to his lab and was accepted. I joined a team of four other undergraduate students in Spring 2024, conducting research in Engineering Education. There, I was formally introduced to qualitative research. 

As an engineering student, I was most familiar with quantitative research—numbers, data, and quantitative results. But in Professor Rodríguez-Simmond’s lab, I was introduced to something completely different. We began by transcribing interview data for qualitative analysis. At first, it felt jarring. This kind of research asked me to not just analyze, but to interpret—to use my experiences to make sense of someone else’s story. It meant pulling apart participants' thoughts, sitting with their words, and allowing my own perspective to inform the conclusions we drew. Reflecting on my identity as a queer Latine engineering student, and my positionality in relation to the research helped me understand that qualitative research–especially with its personal connection to me and my identities– can never be absent of bias. Rather, I learned that it is alongside my identities that I can empathize and draw conclusions from the interview data in ways that my co-researchers could not. Through my shared identities with the participants, I understood them and further understood how queerness and engineering were not always compatible. 

For the first time, I had to bring all of myself into the lab—not just as an engineering student, but as a queer engineering student. And in doing so, I began to relearn what that identity meant to me. I realized this lab had become the only space where I could exist fully as both: as queer and as an engineer.  As the semester came to an end, I knew that I needed to change. I set out to revive the oSTEM chapter at Boston College, to create a space where students like me wouldn’t have to choose between being a STEM student and being a queer student.

oSTEM, or Out in STEM, is a national organization dedicated to supporting LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM fields. I brought this revival to Dr. Laura Steinberg, who supported my e-board and I wholeheartedly. At the same time that I was working to revive the oSTEM chapter at Boston College, I continued my research with Professor Rodríguez-Simmonds’ lab over the summer. We completed a conference paper based on the focus group interview and submitted it to the American Educational Research Association for review, which was later accepted to our joy. 

As the new semester began, I proposed an idea to our lab group: what if we submitted a poster presentation to the oSTEM National Conference taking place in October 2024? Professor Rodríguez-Simmonds and Keira Rao (co-researcher) were immediately supportive, and I led the poster development.

With support from the Schiller Institute and ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖEngineering, I found myself in Portland, Oregon, presenting our research on LGBTQ+ students’ experiences in engineering at the oSTEM National Conference. The presentation was well-received, sparking thoughtful conversations with professionals and researchers who shared their experiences. Many offered valuable insights and pointed us toward existing research, particularly within physics, that could help guide and expand our future work. 

Beyond the research, it was also the first time I found myself in a community with other queer STEM and engineering students. I had the chance to connect with oSTEM leaders from across the country, and since then, I’ve been working to strengthen BC’s oSTEM chapter. We have started hosting monthly community-building events, creating space for us to connect and support one another. There’s still plenty of room for us to grow, but with the support of the Schiller Institute, my lab group, and the friends I made at the oSTEM conference, I’m committed to building something lasting. I hope to provide community for other queer STEM students—and beyond that, to make our presence and belonging in STEM impossible to overlook.

It is with this goal I will present with Professor Rodríguez-Simmonds and Keira Rao to the American Educational Research Association, our research of queer students experiences in STEM. There is more awareness that can be made in queer spaces, but in educational spaces our goal is to show that STEM and queer identities are not mutually exclusive. 

Through oSTEM and qualitative research, I have found my community. Now, I wish to bring this community to the broader world through my future endeavors.