entropy Article Gender Diversity in STEM Disciplines: A Multiple Factor Problem Carmen Botella 1 , Silvia Rueda 1,* , Emilia López-Iñesta 2 and Paula Marzal 1 1 School of Engineering (ETSE-UV), Universitat de València, Av. De l’Universitat s/n, 46100 Valencia, Spain;
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[email protected] (P.M.) 2 Department of Didactics of Mathematics (Faculty of Teaching), Universitat de València, Av. Tarongers, 4, 46022 Valencia, Spain;
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[email protected]; Tel.: +34-963-544-123 Received: 28 September 2018; Accepted: 3 January 2019; Published: 4 January 2019 Abstract: Lack of diversity, and specifically, gender diversity, is one of the key problems that both technological companies and academia are facing these days. Moreover, recent studies show that the number of female students enrolled in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) related disciplines have been decreasing in the last twenty years, while the number of women resigning from technological job positions remains unacceptably high. As members of a higher education institution, we foresee that working towards increasing and retaining the number of female students enrolled in STEM disciplines can help to alleviate part of the challenges faced by women in STEM fields. In this paper, we first review the main barriers and challenges that women encounter in their professional STEM careers through different age stages. Next, we focus on the special case of the information theory field, discussing the potential of gendered innovation, and whether it can be applied in the Information Theory case. The working program developed by the School of Engineering at the University of Valencia (ETSE-UV), Spain, which aims at decreasing the gender diversity gap, is then presented and recommendations for practice are given.