Episode 28: Engineering Equity: A Conversation with Philip Asare

In this episode of Engineering the Future, host Jerome James interviews Dr. Philip Asare, the assistant professor at the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice and Dean's Advisor on Black Inclusivity for the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Engineering. Dr. Asare grew up in Ghana and attended the University of Pennsylvania for his undergrad and masters in electrical engineering. He was compelled to pursue electrical engineering after he questioned why prosthetics didn’t connect with the brain in the same way natural limbs do.

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[Start of recorded material 00:00:00] 

Jerome James:  [00:00:00]

This episode of Engineering the Future is brought to you by The Personal, OSPE's home and auto insurance partner. These past few months have shown us just how important it is to have someone in your corner. When it comes to home and auto insurance, The Personal can be that someone. If you would like to learn more about this exclusive program visit, thepersonal.com/ospe. 

Female Voice:  [00:00:28]

This podcast is brought to you by OSPE, The Ontario Society of Professional Engineers. The advocacy body for professional engineers in the engineering community in Ontario. 

Jerome James:  [00:00:41]

Welcome to Engineering the Future, a podcast presented by The Ontario Society of Professional Engineers. I am your host, Jerome James. 

This is a very special episode of Engineering the Future. We are right in the middle of Black History Month and we're delighted to welcome Dr. Philip Asare from the University of Toronto. [00:00:58] Dr. Asare is an assistant professor at the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice. He is also appointed to the Department of Engineering Science as well as the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. 

In addition to his teaching and leadership responsibilities, Dr. Asare has also recently been appointed the Dean's Advisor on Black Inclusivity for the university's Faculty of Engineering. 

So let's dive right in. Dr. Asare, our audience would love [00:01:30] to know more about your academic journey and your unique professional path. So tell us, how did you get started and how has the journey been so far? 

Philip Asare:  [00:01:39]

Thanks, Jerome. I guess I've got to start from the beginning. I was born and raised in Ghana, and that's where the journey began and did all the way through secondary school in Ghana, and then went to the US University of Pennsylvania for my underground and masters in electrical engineering. I [00:02:00] got onto engineering because my mom's an engineer, she's a civil engineer by training and practice, and the deal that we had was we'd all go to engineering school, but you didn't have to become a professional engineer. My mom thought that engineering education was a good sort of broad foundation for diving into many other disciplines. And so for me, it was sort of – I was going to engineering school and the question was, which one? [00:02:30] 

                          Interesting story about getting into electrical engineering, I had a friend who lost his leg as a kid, I think about age 4 or so. Very young. He got run over by a truck and had to wear a prosthetic. And I always wondered why we don't have e prosthetics that don't interface with the brain the way natural limbs do. So I asked a couple of my mom's friends about which disciplines engaged with that, and a number of them mentioned electrical engineering because it has something to do with signals, and that's the discipline. [00:03:02] so that's where I went exploring. So I picked electrical engineering because I guess I was interested in the kinds of things that had to do with signals and those things. So. 

Jerome James:  [00:03:15]

That's interesting that you didn't have a choice. I've heard that from many people where parents might say, oh I'm only paying for an engineering degree. Or, something sort of like in those lines. But [00:03:30] really that engineering degree is that platform that taught you how to think, right? Did you find that gained skills and knowledge and ways of thinking that others kind of missed out on without that engineering degree? 

Philip Asare:  [00:03:49]

That's a very good question. I mean I think – I think we were all sort of heading in the direction of engineering anyways. My brothers – I have four brothers. We're all very interested in technology, [00:04:00] we played a lot with Legos as kids. And we're always tinkering and building and sort of interested in that. So even without the deal, I think it's an area we all would have bought into eventually. It's just sort of what else did we want to do with it? 

So, I – as much as I was interested in engineering I was also fascinated by people and just sort of human condition and psychology [00:04:30] and those kinds of things. So I guess I wanted something where I could combine a number of different perspectives. And I think, you know, my mom's perspective was that [unintelligible 00:04:40] with something like engineering. It sort of sets you up to engage in a number of other disciplines. Which is true. I mean I've found a lot of people who have sort of engineering undergrad backgrounds who are all over the place, right? In law and medicine, in various areas. And for me I was interested in engineering and medicine right? So that was sort of the connecting [00:05:04] path there for me. 

Has it taught me ways of thinking that I think are useful? Certainly yes. You know, my wife and I talk about this all the time. But yeah, I mean there's certainly parts of my engineering education, I think, that got me to think about the world and see the world in ways that are helpful. 

Jerome James:  [00:05:23]

And then you ended up in those States. 

Philip Asare:  [00:05:26]

Yes, I did. So that's what I did for my undergrad and masters and Ph.D. So I was at the University of Pennsylvania for undergrad and masters. I think – I got a little bit lucky because even though I was in an electrical engineering program, it was run in a department that was an electrical and systems engineering department. Which is not a typical combination. It's often electrical and computer engineering or something of the sort, closer to computer science. But because it was a lot of systems engineering perspective, I think the thing that has stuck with me is that systems thinking. Thinking broadly, like [00:06:02] thinking about all the connections. And I appreciated that about my engineering education. 

What was interesting, though, going through undergrad was I felt like – I think its sort of a general engineering education thing people aspect of it was missing quite a bit. You know, we got into engineering because many of us saw it as a way of sort of impacting communities and impacting people, right? I told the story [00:06:28] about thinking about prosthetics and getting into medicine. But a lot of that wasn't always present in the classroom connected to sort of the technical topics that we were learning about. 

So that really got me thinking about sort of engineering education, how we do it, why we do it. Education is also something that I've been very interested in since, you know, being in Ghana and the educational system there and just seeing different people having different sort of experiences with it.

Jerome James:  [00:06:57]

So the education and delivery portion was your – was the area that catapulted you from an undergraduate education to a master's? Or were you just very focused on learning as much as you can in that signal-processing realm? What made you think, OK, I need more than this undergrad degree for what I want to do in life? 

Philip Asare:     [00:07:22]

Yeah, it's a [very good? 00:07:21] question. I think it was a combination of things. So one was the education piece. A big motivating factor was the education piece. So I wanted to get an education. I had realized that to get into at least higher education you needed a Ph.D. But I also recognized that from higher education you could also get involved a lot in the K to 12, which is what I saw. So the goal was to sort of get a Ph.D. and get a higher education. 

I was also very interested in research and projects, right? So, which is the other thing that you do in graduate school? So learning how to do sort of technical research and come up with new ideas and come up with new ideas and innovation was also a motivating factor. 

And so I think those are the two things that sort of got me into, you know, continuing with the master's and then going on to look into a Ph.D. And I enjoy doing both, now, still working on sort of engineering projects that have impact as well as also be doing the education piece. 

Jerome James:  [00:08:21]

So from the States, how did you end up in Canada? Can you tell me more about your journey to Toronto and then a little bit more about the intent of – and how you ended up at the Institution, a little bit more of the intent of the Institution and what it might mean for the future of engineers and the engineering profession? 

Philip Asare:  [00:08:41]

Also, the keyword is serendipity, as I tell Stephen sometimes, life happens and takes you on various paths. So after [university? 00:08:52] I went to the University of Virginia to do my Ph.D. When I finished I was looking for academic [00:09:02] jobs. And so my first academic job was at an institution called Bucknell University in central Pennsylvania, in Louisburg, Pennsylvania. And that's really where I got my start, I guess part of my personal story is, you know, I'm not from North America, so as an immigrant, you know when you're finishing school you need a job to stay and to do that. So, getting the job was sort of a big piece for me. 

Bucknell actually worked out really well because it was a liberal arts institution that combined – had an engineering college but also had a lot of the arts and science and sort of the human dimensions I was interested in, and people who wanted to collaborate across those disciplines. So I think it was really at Bucknell that I got a chance to explore that sort of interdisciplinary perspective. And bringing in the human element of engineering there. 

Jerome James:  [00:09:57]

So before that, you didn't really see that humanistic or evolution of teaching of engineering. Or is that where you got really into the mechanics behind that? 

Philip Asare: [00:10:11]

I did in small glimpses. So in undergrad, I had a professor who taught his classes as [unintelligible 00:10:19] taught his engineer math classes as sort of an introduction to the history of the ideas, as well as the technical idea. And I really loved that. 

So that brought a bit of the human dimension to the work that we were doing. I was also fortunate to be part of the Technical Communication Program, that was helping students with their sort of engineering communication skills. And so there was a bit of a human element where you're talking to – what's your audience? And then often those things were happening in classes that were sort of ethics and sort of humanistic inclined. 

So I got some of that in undergrad. Not a lot. In grad school, because I was doing engineering and medicine, those things came up quite a bit. Because you can't get away from the people, right? You're doing interdisciplinary work, you see the dynamics of that, and how even closely related disciplines have a lot of differences that you have to navigate – 

Jerome James:  [00:11:18] 

Were there some clinical elements as well? 

Philip Asare:  [00:11:21]

Yeah, exactly. We were doing human subject studies, there were real people engaging with the devices we were putting together, and then these things had the potential for impacts on their work. Actually did a lot of work with the US Food and Drug Administration which regulates medical devices. So looking at safety – patient safety. So kind of thinking about, again, all the different dimensions, the different people who have to think about that, how they come at it differently, and also the patients themselves and how we might put together devices for them. So I got a glimpse of that in a sort of technical way. 

[00:11:55] And then the outreach work that I was doing, I was starting to explore this idea of sort of engineering being sort of human activity with the students that I was working with. So I think after grad school at Bucknell when I had a bit more, I'd say, control over the way I did my work is when I got to dive into that a bit more, with a bit more, I'd say, freedom and agency. 

Jerome James:  [00:12:18]

OK, and then you were looking for positions. Academic positions that led you to the U of T? 

Philip Asare: [00:12:28]

That was the serendipity part. That was life. So my partner moved to Toronto at some point when I was in Bucknell, and so we were sort of doing a cross-border family, and at some point, you know, kids get into the picture and you have to make a decision. It gets a little bit unwieldy. So that was the decision point, and so at that point that got me looking for academic positions in Canada to make that work. [00:13:00] UofT happened to have this position at the time that I was planning to move. And it fits really well. I mean with [I-step? 00:13:10] being new and their focus on this sort of transdisciplinary area, the connection with engineering science and engineering design, where a lot of these humanistic things show up – you know, a couple of my colleagues at Bucknell would comment, are you sure you didn't write this position just for you? 

[00:13:28] And so – 

Jerome James:  [00:13:30]

It was too perfect. 

Philip Asare:  [00:13:32]

Yeah, I mean it was great. It was great timing and everything. So I went for it and got the position. And, yeah, it's been fun trying to work on these things here as well. 

Female Voice:  We hope you are enjoying this episode so far. At OSPE, we're here for you, making sure government, media, and the public are listening to the voice of engineers. You can learn more at OSPE.on.ca. 

Jerome James:  [00:14:00]

You are also the current Dean Advisor on Black Inclusivity at UofT. Can you touch on a little bit about your advisory role, how it affects your education research, and how these things kind of roll into education for people of colour, especially within technical STEM backgrounds or areas of study? 

[00:14:30] How has this kind of coloured your experience at UofT? 

 

Yeah, so, I guess prior to UofT I had been involved in equity, diversity, and inclusion work. I think I mentioned to other folks that for me the notion of being Black, the way it's constructed in North America was foreign to me until I came here. And so being in the Philadelphia area, and getting, again, through serendipity involved in outreach work and seeing sort of underrepresentation in engineering, it's something I've been working on for quite a while, for starting off an outreach, then undergrad and masters and Ph.D. And then actually starting to do some research and [unintelligible 00:15:20] initiatives when I was at Bucknell, worked on a study called People Like Me, where we were looking at role models and mentors, and the ways in which we present these to [00:15:30] underrepresented students to sort of increase motivation for the discipline. 

And then came to UofT recognizing that similar issues are here in Canada and continue to sort of do that work, working with the various groups within the faculty. There's an EDI action group that does some work. I am on the sort of governing committee that's responsible for EDI as well. [00:16:00] And so had been involved in various spaces, did some work, continued to do work with outreach office as well until the sort of Dean's Advisor was a little bit of a natural transition there. The Dean's Advisor roles are relatively new. So I think they're still being conceptualized, and I guess the person who takes the role gets to shape it a little bit. I see the role as sort of strategic in the sense of [00:16:32] collaborating with units around the faculty to work on their EDI goals. So for me, I – my model of EDI is that it's everyone's work and it's not the work of a specific office or specific group of people to hold that weight for the rest of the institution. 

Jerome James:  [00:16:53]

Right. Would you say that different schools or departments display different versions of their own understanding of EDI and they wanted some sort of cohesive strategy at UofT, or how was that kind of rolled out before you? 

Philip Asare:  [00:17:17]

So I think my personal impression is everyone's still trying to figure it out. I think what I've seen is happening, and not just here and in the US, right? They're within departments and various [00:17:30] entities within an institution, they are working on their own local EDI issues. And so they're coming up with these strategies, and often there are these roles, either in the Dean's Office or centrally at the university level that is helping to inform that and coordinate those activities. And so I think that is kind of in the model. 

 [00:17:56] Sometimes these roles are taking on quite a bit of work in various specific initiatives and leading those. And so yeah, I think different people have different models on – you know, in terms of what EDI work is and where the potential issues are and how you address it. So I think there are some folks who take a bit more of a programmatic lens, right? So if we have these programs and these support systems they will help resolve some of the issues. There are others who are taking more of, I'd say, systemic lens, and saying, well we have institutional structures that may be contributing to these, and how do we [00:18:32] review, them, revise them, change them so that they are sort of the institution itself and the way that it operates is more inclusive. 

Jerome James:  [00:18:41]

Academic structures. Can you bring it down for us? Is there, like, an example of something that you see is problematic that maybe many schools are falling into that don't necessarily serve the Black population or populations of colour that are areas that you’ve identified that are maybe low-hanging fruit that can be improved into the future? Or is it mostly a long-haul trudge to get any type of change? 

And you can contrast by your experience in the States versus how you see things going forward in Canada. 

Philip Asare: [00:19:26]

So, yeah, I guess we're running into the thorny places here. So, let's see, how do I put this? I think part of it is historical. Right? So when the institutions were conceptualized there weren't a lot of BIPOC people in the institution, right? So not a lot of them attending. And so what institutions do is they shape themselves around who's there, right? And that becomes a tradition. 

[00:19:57] So there's an assumption about, you know, students who are coming in, what is their background, what is their culture, what is their worldview, what is their knowledge, and what is valued? That gets baked in, and that becomes the way things are done. But as new people with different backgrounds and values come in, that hasn't changed, so you don't feel sort of welcome. 

So I've been reading a book recently called Engineering Justice, written by two folks at the Colorado School of Mines, I believe. And [00:20:30] you know, they talk about, you know, even in an engineering classroom when you're doing, like, analysis of beams, civil engineering class. Like whose beams are analyzing that? Right? And so that kind of hints about whose perspective and whose soy has privilege. So I mean simple things, like even the examples that we use in class, right? Or the people we highlight are those who have made contributions to the field. Right? 

[00:20:56] So there was the book and movie that came out recently, Hidden Figures, and all the contributions that Black mathematicians had made to the space race that we weren't aware of, right? And computer programming. If things like that aren't getting highlighted in the classroom as part of the way we present sort of the discipline and its development, because that's partly what we do when we do these things, then people like me don't feel welcome or don't see ourselves as part of the profession, right? 

[00:21:25] So I'd say there's relatively simple tweaks like that, and sort of thinking about the examples you use, who you highlight, and also how you structure your classroom. Again, you know, school and classrooms and curricula are structured around a certain kind of student who has a certain amount of time and particular kinds of obligations, right? And so – but the academic structures are built all around that. And so again, when students are coming from a different background, maybe different family setup, different responsibilities, different motivations, and how they're navigating the institution, that can get in the way because it doesn't assume them. 

Jerome James:  [00:22:02]

Right. So making sure that the technical history is also included in technical fields and making students from all different backgrounds feel included, and that they're relevant in their area of field, will make them feel more included in that field. 

Philip Asare:  [00:22:25]

Yeah, and then that, you know, applications of engineering to their community matters. Right? So that's all part of that. Yeah. 

Jerome James:  [00:22:35]

Can you maybe touch on how education is shifting full throttle into this new age of increased AI accessibility, just new techniques of teaching, new instruments, and new ideas? Where do you see education evolving in the near future? 

Philip Asare:  [00:23:03]

Yeah, that's another thorny one. Yeah, I mean I've had this discussion with my students in the past, right? So, I mean if you think about education there are various tools and resources that exist that have different kinds of value, right? So I would often tell students, if I stand in front of the classroom and repeat to you things that you can already easily access for free, that's a [00:23:30] waste of our time, right? The value that I bring as an educator is not in the sort of standing there and telling you facts that are easily accessible, right? In the age of search and even AI, I think. 

The value that I bring as an educator, at least I see personally, is in helping students make sense of all those things, right? Understand how they're developed and sort of picking up, I'd say process skills. Right? How do you learn? How do you [00:24:02] make sense of information, because there's a lot of information available. How do you filter the information? How do you get to the information that's useful and valuable, and how do you leverage that in the work that you're doing? And that's something that a search engine really can't teach you. And an AI probably couldn't. I mean you can see examples in the way that ChatGPT might explain how it comes to its answers. 

[00:24:26] But there's a certain sort of facilitating of the education that educators do [cross talking 00:24:36] 

Jerome James:  [00:24:36]

Right, you still need to get to the classroom. 

Philip Asare: [00:24:36]

Yeah, there's the value of being in the classroom right? And interacting with a human who is curating an environment that's going to help you learn. And I think that's the big shift that I've seen, especially in engineering education, even before the advent of these sorts of language models that are doing things. Right? Which is sort of moving to a model where we [00:25:00] focus on helping students pick up these process skills and these learning skills, as opposed to a focus on so delivering information, right? Which is just putting out the facts. 

Jerome James:  [00:25:21]

Are you pessimistic or optimistic about the near future with these tools? 

Philip Asare:  [00:25:27]

I mean all these tools are double-edged swords right? A tool is only as useful as you make it, right? And so – and that’s a big one. I think the keyword is a tool, right? I think people need to understand that these things are potentially useful tools, but they are also potentially dangerous tools, right? And so – and you need ways to kind of verify and validate the information that you're getting out of the tool so that you're sure you can leverage that information [00:26:02] in the way that [is right? 00:26:04]. So just taking the information blindly and using it can be dangerous because the tools have limitations in the ways that they're developed. They – you know, others have raised issues about the development of the tools themselves and the way that they harvest information, right? So there's a lot of issues to contend with, with that tool. 

 [00:26:25] They're also great learning opportunities, right? It's a piece of technology that is from my discipline, electrical computer engineering, and even the conversation about, like, how do you develop these tools? Should we develop them? What is their utility? Who are they helping? Who are they harming? Who are they leaving out? You know, what is the potential danger is important. 

So I'm sort of – and we've already seen areas where technology doesn't recognize darker skin, things that have been overlooked in beta testing for different diverse [00:27:00] populations. So that definitely needs to be in the conversation when these tolls are being developed. Personally, I'm cautious, let's just say. Often – cautious about the hype. I think there are some impressive things these tools are capable of, but there is always the sort of things to watch out for. 

And also thinking critically, I don't think we have a  good consensus yet on where all these things fit. I think that's also going to sort of evolve in the [00:27:32] way that we see the role that these things play in education. But I also think that then it has to be sort of co-developed, right? Like having the company just go out and put out these things and have the education sort of react to it isn't sort of, I'd say, the best model of development. If it's going to be useful for education then there has to be that input from educators and people being educated in there to say how might this be useful for the enterprise that we're engaged in. So yeah. 

Jerome James:  [00:28:00]

As an organization, OSPE is committed to increasing equity, diversity and inclusion within the engineering community. Given your experience in what UofT is trying to achieve, do you have any advice on how to do this in a moving forward way? 

Philip Asare:  [00:28:15]

Yeah, that's a good one. I have some, but I wouldn't say I'm the expert on all of this. As I said, I'm of the perspective that we need to focus on the systemic issues [00:28:30] and the structural issues out there. I mean there the analogy that's often been used is sort of the leaky pipeline analogy. And I feel like a lot of what we try to do is – 

Jerome James:  [00:28:45]

Can you explain what the leaky pipeline analogy is? 

Philip Asare:  [00:28:48]

So the leaky pipeline is sort of, of engineering or STEM as a career path and people are kind of flowing through this pipe to get into the industry and then through the career, that we're losing sort of BIPOC people because the pipeline – the pipe is leaky in some way, right? They're leaking out of the pipe. 

[00:29:04] I feel like the approach that we typically take is sort of, I'd say sort of fixing the fluid through the pipe. Like we focus on the people, which I think is good. We have to acknowledge that there are people who are being left out. But we don't focus on the pipe, right? So if a pipe's leaking, right? You fix the pipe. If there are new fluids that weren't anticipated for the pipe coming in, then you have to adapt [00:29:32] [for? 00:29:32] the pipe itself to make sure that everyone flows through, right? 

And so for me, that's sort of focusing on the systemic structures, right? Sort of what is engineering today? How has it been conceptualized throughout history? Were these people in mind when we were developing the profession? The answer is, no, really. And so now that they're here and want to be a part of the profession, how do we adapt and make the work that we're doing more inclusive for them [00:30:00] and their societies that they're coming from, and so that's why I think, you know, focusing on the structures, you know, industry structures, you know, workplace practices. Also, academic structures like I talked about. And the various ways in which we acknowledge difference and support differences are going to be important. 

Jerome James:  [00:30:22]

Great. I feel like that covers it. Is there anything else that you'd like to add on this topic that we haven't touched on yet? 

Philip Asare: [00:30:33]

Yeah, I mean I think the last thing that I'd say – maybe, you asked this a little bit is this going to be sort of drudge work? I think so long as we're committed to getting there. That's important, right? I think there are going to be some challenges along the way. And in any enterprise there are going missteps. We have to kind of work through certain things that are going to come up. It's not going to be all rosy. 

[00:31:00] 

But I think the commitment to actually doing the work is important. And the continuing to, you know, work on change, despite the challenges, despite the difficult conversations that need to be had, I think is key to getting us to where we want to go. 

Jerome James:  [00:31:19]

I feel like this is just the start of many conversations that we could have about the engineering profession today, and where engineering education for Black and BIPOC youth needs to go into the future. 

[00:31:32] Thank you so much for joining me today, Dr. Asare. Thanks for your time. I was thrilled to be able to have the chance to connect with you and talk about these important conversations that we definitely need to have in the engineering community in Ontario. 

Philip Asare:  [00:31:49]

Thanks for having me, Jerome. 

Jerome James:  [00:31:52]

Once again, I've been speaking to Dr. Philip Asare from the University of Toronto. I am your host, Jerome James. This has been Engineering the Future. Thanks for listening. 

Female Voice:  From all of us at OSPE, The Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, thanks for listening. Please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. 

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