IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - June 2022 - 76

18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
IEEE
PELS
IAS
PES
EDS
13.4%
11.9%12.1%
10.7%
7.5%7.8%7.9%
8.7%
7% 6.7%6.6%
8.6%9.1%9.5%10%
8.8%
7.5%
6.2%
5.1%
3.9% 4%3.7% 3.6%3.6%
2000
2005
2010
Year
FIG 1 Historical data on the percentage of women members in IEEE (blue), PELS (red), and sister societies. Source: IEEE PELS.
data into perspective, it means that for
a woman in a room full of 10 PELS
members, the probability of being the
only woman is still very likely. Nevertheless,
the increase in PELS and IEEE
representation of women in the last 5
years is promising for further growth,
but still lags behind sister societies
Industry Applications Society (IAS)
and Power & Energy Society (PES).
1,500
1,000
500
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Year
(a)
40
30
20
10
2010
Fellow Senior Member
Grad Student Member
Student Member (Undergrad)
Member
Student Member (Undergrad)
Grad Student Member
Member
Senior Member
Fellow
The continued efforts of IEEE and
PELS to improve DEI will be a key factor
in the slope of these trends. While
the data in Figure 1 gives a sense of the
overall membership, we need to dive
deeper into the data to understand
where the growth is actually occurring.
Next, we analyze the distribution
of women per membership level by
year. This analysis was not performed
a year ago and provides some new
insightful information. The membership
levels are Fellow, Senior Member,
Member, Graduate Student Member,
and Student Member (non-graduate
students, primarily undergraduate students).
Within PELS, the number of
women in each of these membership
grades is shown in Figure 2(a), starting
from 2010. As of 2021, the most
significant number of women are
undergraduate Student Members
(54.5%), followed by regular members
(23.4%), Graduate Student Members
(11.4%), Senior Members (10.0%), and
Fellows (0.7%). The percentage of
women in each membership grade
for PELS, starting from 2010, is shown
in Figure 2(b).
The largest area of growth has
2012
2014
2016
Year
(b)
FIG 2 (a) Number of women members in PELS according to membership grade and
(b) percentage of women in each membership grade. Source: IEEE PELS.
76 IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE z June 2022
2018
2020
been in undergraduate Student Members,
which has steadily increased
since 2015. After these undergraduate
students graduate, we should expect
the number of women graduate students
and regular members to also
increase proportionally over time.
However, the trends of the graduate
members and regular members have
only increased very gradually. This
indicates that undergraduate women
are joining PELS, likely in student
chapter groups where gender representation
is more inclusive, but many
are not continuing after graduation.
The attrition of student members after
graduation is a challenge that IEEE
Societies face for all members (regardless
of gender), but the problem is
2015
2020
6%
6.8%
10.6%
12.9%
8.7%
13.3%
10.3%
14.8%
11.8%
9.6%
Percentage Women
Number of Women
Percentage Women

IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - June 2022

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