MEL #017 | From Shop Class to STEM Changemaker through a Season of Yes with Dr. Whitney Gaskins

GASKINS (00:00)

You don’t need to change who you are, but you need to understand how other people interact with who you are. When you know that, that means you can have better relationships with people who either report to you or who you report to.

ADAMS (00:36)

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Whitney Gaskins, the Associate Dean of Professional Development and Community Impact in the University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Applied Science. Whitney grew up in rural Ohio, influenced by her parents, teachers of art and physics, who nurtured both her creativity and analytical thinking. Initially aiming for medicine, a shop class and a Time Magazine article introduced her to biomedical engineering, which she pursued through a bachelor’s and a PhD, with a short detour to get a master’s in quantitative analysis. Along the way, her curiosity led her to study stress in engineering students and eventually launch a career in academia. In our leadership segment, Whitney discusses how she led the creation of two departments from the ground up at the University of Cincinnati, including one focused on engineering education and another on professional development and community impact. She shared how visionary leadership paired with clear communication and strategic stakeholder engagement enabled her to transform abstract ideas into thriving programs. encourages engineers to pursue leadership not just for career growth, but to become more impactful problem solvers. She advises aspiring leaders to become deeply self-aware, learn about others’ preferences, listen before speaking, and embrace the discomfort of new beginnings as part of their growth journey.

Without further delay, here is my conversation with Dr. Whitney Gaskins.

ADAMS (02:00)

Hi, Whitney. Welcome to the Mastering Engineering Leadership Podcast.

GASKINS (02:03)

Thank you for having me. I’m happy to be here.

ADAMS (02:06)

I’m very excited to hear about your journey. So can you start by telling us about how you got into engineering as a career path?

GASKINS (02:13)

Yeah, I would love to. I attribute a lot of my exposure to my parents. So my parents are teachers. My mom is an art teacher. My dad was a physics teacher. And so I think they didn’t realize that they were doing this, but just by nature of who they were, were sparking that engineering curiosity of creativity and innovation. grew up in a rural part of Ohio. And I remember when we built

barn and we built the deck and the building of things was always nice and intriguing for me but I also really loved biology and I don’t know if that’s just like that country part because you’re around a lot of different animals and living things but like biological systems were interesting so I honestly thought I was going to be a doctor but I took a class it was mandatory when I was in high school to take shop and home ec and I loved my shop class so we went through exercises of like drafting and I learned all of the different types of architectural like drawing and I was sold like I wanted to do something that incorporated that. And there was a magazine, a Time Magazine article about this up and coming field of biomedical engineering. And my dad was like, these are the things that you love. And I was sold like, I was like, I can be a biomedical engineer. And so I think from eighth grade on, I was going, like I knew I wanted to go into this field of biomedical engineering. And that’s how I ended up doing it. I don’t work currently as a biomedical engineer, but I have two degrees in biomedical engineering. So I got my bachelor’s in biomed and my PhD in biomed. And I have like one biomedical engineering project, but actually study engineering education as a researcher in higher ed. But that’s how I got there. It’s just the…

perfect combination of interest and having family that were very open to giving me opportunity and exposure to explore my curiosities. I laugh a lot about the fact that my parents didn’t do gendered toys. And I think that also helped me go into it because I had Legos and erector sets and Barbies and GI Joes. And so like everything played together. I don’t I never had the gender norms growing up, helped me feel very secure in my choice. Like it wasn’t foreign to me to mix things and play with a variety of things. 

ADAMS (04:31)

Yeah, that’s amazing that you knew so early on that you wanted to go into biomedical engineering in particular, like that specific niche of engineering. And so as you mentioned, you have two degrees. So you got your undergraduate and then you went on to get a PhD in biomedical engineering. And I’m curious, was it what you had hoped it would be once you actually got into the studying?

GASKINS (04:50)

Okay, so this is the interesting part. I got my bachelor’s in biomed. I actually got my master’s first, but in a different college, I went and got in it in the College of Business. All of my degrees are from the University of Cincinnati. I wanted to go into research and development, and so I said, how do I get into research and development? I need a stronger statistical background like engineering is great, but I really needed to do better analysis to do R &D in industry. So I got my master’s degree in quantitative analysis.

But I was doing my thesis project analyzing stress data. How do rats that are in this visual burrowing system under like experience stress? And so I had a dominant rat and three subordinate rats and we were collecting all of this data, like how often they eat, their fat composition, all of these things. And I made a joke to my advisor at the time about, I felt like I was one of these rats.

When I was going through my engineering program and he was like, that’s not really funny. For me, I’m like, ha ha ha. That’s not good. That’s not funny. And he was like, you should study that. So that’s actually how I ended up back in biomedical engineering, doing stress response work, trying to understand the students under stress in the learning environment.

ADAMS (05:46)

Yeah. That’s not good. Yeah.

GASKINS (06:04)

Nothing about grad school is what I thought it was. So I was not the person that was like, my God, I love school. I felt like I never hated school. I was never that person, but I didn’t think I was going to be in school for as long as I was. I was doing something because I wanted to do research and development. Then I ended up doing another thing because my curiosity was peaked, honestly, from my master’s project. And I had no idea that there was this world that people actually study stress in students, but

It’s not that the stress is different for engineering students than others, but engineering has a culture. It has a subculture that is hard to understand if you’re not a part of it. And I have the opportunity to study it. So that’s partially why I study stress in engineering students now. man, graduate school was so different than undergrad, but it was a wonderful, it was a wonderful experience for me. Cause I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about how you 

navigate foreign spaces. I learned a lot about asking questions and the need for community and support. I just, I felt like I became an adult, like a true adult through graduate school or undergrad, like, yeah, you grow up, but it’s a different test of your mental health in graduate school.

ADAMS (07:18)

Oh yeah, I love the way you said that. a different test of your mental health. And I agree. mean, on the one hand, you have all this autonomy to pursue all these interests and to, in many cases, set your own schedule and all these other things. But with that comes a whole different set of challenges. And then I love what you said about the subculture of engineering. I completely agree with that. I was in the industry for many, many years. And now I’m in academia, which is a new space for me.

After I left the corporate world, I came back and kind of started to spend more time just in the community dealing with people who weren’t engineers, which is sort of new for me. And I’m realizing, like, they have these really interesting perception of us. And they don’t really understand why we kind of, I mean, we’re obviously not a monolith, but there are certain characteristics, communication styles, different, the lenses through which we see the world as someone who has been an engineering student that that causes us to sort of see things in a certain way. And man, the rest of the world doesn’t get it.

GASKINS (08:18)

They do not get it. I always ponder it too because try to describe it is really hard. It is challenge and we don’t, we can’t even adequately describe what that culture is, but it’s there and you’ll feel it and you’ll experience it once you’re in it.

ADAMS (08:34)

Yeah, absolutely. so I feel like we’re going to have to follow up with you afterward. We’re talk more about this. I’m teaching a new leadership course for engineering students. And one of the things I am finding is that I’m trying my best to help them understand in terms of influence and communication and things like that, that this is often the way people see us as engineers. given those assumptions that come in about us, let’s see how we can navigate those or maybe even interrupt the pattern of the way people might see us so that they could potentially see us as leaders more than sort of the best technical solution or almost seen as like a tool sometimes. We’re the tool that solves the problem when maybe you want to be seen as something more broad than that, So I’ll be interested to hear.

Yeah, if that relates to anything that you do, But I want get back to you. you have had a very interesting career path. You talk about pursuing these interests in graduate school. And you’ve had several stops along the way. Can you just talk a little bit about how you ended up where you are today?

GASKINS (09:34)

I’m there’s a lot of divine intervention into this. Like, I actually was working in retail as an undergrad because I had to work to pay for school and I was, I guess, really good at my job. was promoted. was managing and I had three different stores. And so I was over the marketing department. Remind you, in engineering, undergraduate, got promoted into management, leading three different stores, but I had to work to pay for school.

ADAMS (09:37)

Excellent.

GASKINS (10:00)

When I got my master’s degree, I had just competed in a beauty pageant. That’s how I got the scholarship dollars to pay for my master’s degree. So I paid for my master’s degree that way. And all pageant girls have a platform that they care about and what they’re going to champion. And mine was STEM education. Not a surprise, but it was STEM. All of these things together led to me working as a faculty member in academe, but I

So I start a organization called the Gaskins Foundation because I said, well, I was tired of being the lonely only. So all the way through bachelor’s, master’s, and then definitely my PhD, I was the only one that looked like me in my classes. And I felt like, what a disservice because it’s not because I’m just smart, right? Like a lot of people are like, well, like that just means other people weren’t smart. No, I just had really good parents that were able to get poor into me and help me navigate how to get here.

And it’s not fair if other people didn’t have that same experience. So I wanted to start this family foundation to be able to give other kids opportunity that my parents gave to me, which is opportunity and access to possibly go into engineering. So that’s, start this and this is while I’m starting my master’s degree program, I competed, but I’m still working that retail job. A guy that was a regular at the retail shop was like, I see how hard you work. Come work for me.

So I quit my real till job and I work at an auto company using my engineering degree, finishing my masters. And then I use that for a while working full time at this automotive company, getting my foundation started, doing all of those things in my master’s degree. And we’ll keep in mind I’m doing STEM Ed K through 12, helping the community that way. Then I…

I get into this PhD program again, don’t know what I’m getting myself into, but my curiosity is there. I’m doing a biomedical engineering project, but I am really intrigued at this engineering ed because now I’m doing both of this foundation work in the, in my dissertation work in my work in my PhD program. So I have to leave my corporate, my industry job because I’m about to graduate and they’re like, Whitney, you can’t keep working full time and, and discerting. Like it’s not gonna, that doesn’t work out well.

So I leave, but then I start teaching. So now I’m teaching in higher ed. I am working in K through 12 systems. I have this foundation and I’m doing all of this research that helped me with that quantitative analysis in my master’s degree, in my PhD, under standing stress culture, and that engineering culture that eventually then I was like, I’m going to go back to my automotive job. I finished my dissertation. They’re like, no, no, we want you to stay on as a faculty member here. That’s how I ended up in academe.

Every point was literally just people were giving the opportunity. That’s why I say there’s divine intervention into this is because all of those things came together to help me do what I’m doing now. Developing programs that increase retention and access for students, outreach initiatives to ensure that we’re helping the community and the population get into engineering programs. I was definitely learning a lot of skills. So the marketing thing that comes in play like

I wish you were working in marketing. I don’t, defy stereotypes of engineering in multiple ways. I have no issues communicating and talking to people, which has actually helped me elevate in my career and have different experiences because in marketing you have to talk to people and it’s really uncomfortable. And I was, should not have been doing it as young as I was, but I was getting set up for my future. I didn’t know it at the time, but now I look back, I’m like, why did I have all of these different experiences?

It was because I was being set up for what I’m doing now.

ADAMS (13:44)

So you mentioned divine intervention and I absolutely believe that. It seems to me that you’ve done so many different things that you could have run up against an imposter syndrome wall that blocked you from pursuing any of these different things all along the way. so I’m curious, first off, you view it that way, but what has young Whitney say?

Sure, I can lead the marketing team or sure, can go in automotive. what is it about you that had you take all those opportunities that presented themselves to you?

GASKINS (14:18)

Yeah, I mean, I tell people this now, hindsight to 2020, I’m like, give yourself a season of yes. I gave myself a season of yes without calling it that. But I have extreme self-assuredness, and this is probably why I also went into engineering. We go into engineering to solve problems, and for me, it solve problems to help people. So I’m like, oh, I mean, if I don’t know how to do it now, I’m going to be able to figure it out. Like, every problem has a solution. That’s a part of that engineering culture, right? Like, there is nothing about it that’s going to be impossible to solve. I know how to read. I know how to find resources. I know how to talk to people. If I can’t figure it out myself, I know that I can figure out how to get the information to be able to figure it out. I’ve always navigated that way. That does not mean I’ve never felt like an imposter. I still feel like an imposter sometimes today. Like, ooh, I don’t know if I actually belong in this space. Like, that happens. But let’s be real. I am very talented, and I’m not going to let anyone else tell me that I’m not.

I have proof of my talent, of my fruit that I’ve been able to give, you know, through my labor. So I just, I don’t think I let myself go down the rabbit hole of like, do I belong or do I not? I also have to be very honest about the fact that I’m a woman and I’m black and being a black woman in America, I tend to be in the out groups more often than I’m in the in groups. So I can’t wallow in that because I don’t know what it feels like to be completely included. People work very hard to exclude me. So I’m, I don’t, I don’t feel the same level of pressure of, of imposter syndrome as some other groups do because I’m always on the outs by nature of my identity.

ADAMS (15:59)

I feel the same way actually. if I had let people exclude me every time they tried, I would get nowhere. And now like, I almost don’t even see it anymore. Do you know what I mean? I’m so, I belong everywhere.

GASKINS (16:09)

I’m like, I’m not always on the out, so like, I’m not gonna exclude myself,

ADAMS (16:24)

Okay Whitney, can you give us an example of when you had to use your leadership skills?

GASKINS (16:27)

I have the honor to use my leadership skills all of the time. I work in a department that I started, so we did not have engineering education at the University of Cincinnati when I decided to join as a faculty member. So being the professoriate, normally joining an established department. We did not have a department that was like research, granting, graduate school. So I got to start that and use my problem solving skills to be able to start a department. And we also started a department that’s

professional development and community impact about how do we develop people and how do we do community outreach in a really good way. And so I’ve done that from starting something from scratch. So it’s almost like having a startup company, getting all those resources, getting people to buy in. It is a wonderful experience, but it’s also very exhausting because you have to be able to share your mission and vision, get people to support, resource you, believe in you.

But it takes a lot of strength of leadership. And that’s part of being a leader, right? Is getting people to fall for your vision. And I think I’ve been successful at least twice in being able to do that at this one company, at this one institution. And that’s wonderful. On a day-to-day basis, I do this by leading my team. So I have a team of eight people who work in one of my offices or on my research team. And I have to give vision all of the time. So I don’t manage my team and there is a difference between management and leadership. I lean more towards leader than manager. I give people the vision, but I also believe that they have the autonomy to figure out how it works and to make the vision come true. I give feedback about things that I like and don’t like, but that’s, think, my job as their boss, as their supervisor. And that’s how I exercise my leadership. Engineering comes into…play to this because I do like the facts. If you do like a true colors assessment, they have all of those. I’m the person that is like very direct. And if you do the disc assessment, I’m the don’t like, just give me the facts, like just lay it out. So I like to problem solve that way. Then we can get to the emotion later, but I want to be able to solve your problems so we can move forward and make the dream come true.

ADAMS (18:41)

So I love that you talked about vision in two places. So one is sort of starting this thing from ground zero and having to develop your vision and then get an onboard people, stakeholders, people to invest, buy into what you’re doing. But then casting and communicating the vision doesn’t stop there. You are now doing it on a recurring basis with your team for their day-to-day work. And you use that visioning as sort of the framework for I’ll set the vision and my team, I pick the right people, they know what to do. And so I love that you talked about that. Can you talk a little bit about your approach to maybe both developing the vision, but also communicating it in an effective way? Because as you know, we don’t necessarily get that in our normal engineering education.

GASKINS (19:26)

He I I’m go on a little tangent because I think it’s important. I read this book called Mastery. One of my friends was like you have to read the book Mastery. You’ll love it. He was right. I loved it. There’s a story in this book. I’m only gonna tell this one because the book is fantastic and I recommend other people reading it. But there’s a story about a gentleman who knew why people were not going like doing well after surgery.

And it turns out that he was the first person to tell people, need to have a sterile field. Like we have to sterilize our equipment, you have to have a sterile field. But you would think like him telling people that they would have bought in. Everyone thought he was crazy. They were like, get this kooky guy out of here. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. They were making fun of him. He actually ended up like penniless and his reputation tarnished. No one listened to him, right? So I’m like, my gosh, don’t be him.

Like you have to learn how to communicate, because he was right. How crazy is it that his reputation was destroyed and he didn’t have a job and he didn’t have any kind of legacy because he didn’t know how to effectively communicate. Do not be him. And so effective communication is not beating your vision and mission into somebody else’s mind. I have a mentor who always says, a person convinced against their will is of the same opinion still. You cannot change anyone’s mind.

but you have to communicate effectively. What does that look like? You lay out the plan, you have your rationale as to why, you give people the strategy and the tactics, how you’re gonna measure success, and you share that often. They might not agree with all of it, but if it’s a well-thought-out plan, people are like, we’re gonna let you, you do you, and then you ask people like, be collaborative in your communication. I want to invite you to help in this. They’ll say, really? Yeah, what do you see in this plan?

Will have you thought about. People love giving their feedback and opinions. We do. If you ever thought about it, unsolicited advice is probably the best thing ever given. so get it from people. Like people love to get it. So give a plan and then how do you see this flowing? Do you see something wrong? Ask for the feedback. If they give it to you, recognize it as a gift. That doesn’t mean it’s great, but feedback is always a gift because if they don’t care, they’re not gonna give you any comments. That also,

This is one of those leadership tricks. People that have nothing to share with you and they just say, no, I have no thoughts, aren’t trying to see you in. The lack of feedback tells you just as much as the feedback. Just being honest.

ADAMS (21:54)

Yeah, that’s a really great insight. Yeah, I’m just reflecting on that myself. You’re absolutely right. I’m like, yeah, OK, that’s an important thing to, important nugget to hold onto. Can you also talk a little bit about how you identify the stakeholders you get the feedback from?

GASKINS (22:12)

Mmm.

Yeah, see, there’s this myth that like you have to get along with everybody and you have to like everyone or everybody has to be your friend. That’s not true. You just need to know how to navigate spaces and work with all different types of people. See, there’s gonna be people that I can’t remember all the categories. I used to have categories for people, but there are people that we shy away from, like the person who’s always disgruntled. They like always have a problem, use them. They are the first people you go to when you wanna develop a plan. If you are a true leader, you know that they’re gonna tell you everything that’s wrong and that helps you identify potholes. Don’t think about them as being annoying. Think of them as the strength of, they see everything that’s wrong with everything. That’s a skill. I need to use that skill so that way I can avoid unnecessary potholes. Like I can figure out how to navigate that, because they’re already gonna tell me all the things. The gossip, the person that just doesn’t know how to hold water, use that. What have you heard? Can you know they heard it? Get the tea.

Understand, learn from them because they’re going to know everything that’s going on because they talk all the time. So don’t think like, this person is a gossip, so let me avoid them. You probably shouldn’t tell them your business, but you can learn a whole lot about everything else that helps inform your plan. And so the more you recognize the things that you find annoying as strengths, the better leader you’re going to be because you have a different appreciation for people. Because I guarantee you’re also one of the annoying people to somebody too.

Just remember that.

ADAMS (23:50)

Okay Whitney, as we wrap up, what advice would you give to engineers who want to pursue leadership roles?

GASKINS (23:55)

I think all engineers should pursue leadership roles. It helps you understand your role in engineering. For a long time, right, you might develop a product or a process and not understand what you’re developing and its impact on other people, the community in which you reside, or even the world. Going into leadership gives you a different perspective about the work that you’re doing, and it makes you a better engineer. You also have a very unique talent as an engineer because you do see problems differently. This is that engineering culture we are, we’re ingrained in as we’re studying and we just learn how to look at problems a little bit differently, which is valuable to a set of people that might not have that skill set, have gone through that type of training because you can break down really complex things to root cause. I mean, root cause analysis is a thing for a reason, but you can apply it to a whole host of things outside of just engineering problems, but even life problems in the world. And so that unique talent is something that we need in leadership.

ADAMS (24:57)

And do you have any thoughts on maybe that first transition into leadership? Sometimes that can be a real challenge for anybody in any field, actually. But maybe since you’re so well versed in the engineering culture, can you talk a little bit about what an engineer who’s thinking about that first transition, what are some things they might want to think about?

GASKINS (25:16)

I have a few. You first need to know who you are. So I said a couple of different assessments, true colors, disc assessment. There are many. Strengths, Clifton Strengths, Myers-Briggs, like there’s just a whole host. You need to know who you are. Why do you need to know who you are? Because you don’t need to change who you are, but you need to understand how other people interact with who you are. When you know that, that means you can have better relationships with people that either report to you or who you report to.

So that way you have a great understanding of one another and you know how to navigate conversations, problems, you know how to do that well. If you go into a blind thinking that I don’t need to know those things, you tend to have the most problems because you’re not self-aware. Self-awareness is one of the best leadership tactics that anybody can use. And so I tell you, learn who you are inside and out. I tell people this model is what happened in 8 Mile. So if you’ve never seen the movie 8 Mile, it’s Eminem’s life, but he wins the final like rap battle scene. Sorry, I’m killing it if you’ve never seen it before. But he wins because he takes away all of the things about himself that you could say that could possibly hurt him. There’s no battle. If I say all of the bad things about myself, there’s nothing left to say. Do that for yourself. Be extremely self-aware.

That means there’s gonna be things that you love about yourself and there’s gonna be things that you’re like, ooh, I don’t really like that. And the things that you don’t like, put a plan in place to fix it or just be comfortable knowing that’s who you are. The second is get to know other people. Gone are the days of the golden rule. We do not need you to treat people the way you want to be treated. That is very selfish and not inclusive of the people who are gonna eventually work for you. Get to know them and start with the platinum room. How do they want to be treated? What are the things that they value? The more you get to know them, the more people are going to buy in and believe in you as a leader because they’re going to want to be led by you. If they don’t want to be led by you, you’re going to have a hard time getting anything done because you don’t have trust and you don’t have a team and you have to spend time building your team. It is labor intensive, which means you’re not going to have the traditional productivity of getting things done quickly, but you will.

When you eventually form your team. And there’s a lot of teams, science and psychology about what that looks like. Get through it if you truly want to be a leader, because that’s when you have it. I have people that have worked for me since I started the department and I, they’ve had opportunity to leave, but we have made such a wonderful culture together. They’re like, hmm, Whitney, would follow you anywhere, right? Like we’ve built that kind of rapport. You want people to be on your team that are like that. That’s not going to be everybody.

But it is something that you want. If you haven’t been able to do that at least once, you need to spend more time either learning yourself or spending time with the others.

I really think is important is that if you want to be a leader, you need to listen more than you talk. Learn everything that you can possibly learn and that’ll serve you. Cause if you know the ins and outs of the business, the ins and outs of every department, you’re a better leader because you’re speaking from an informed place. Listen first before speaking. You don’t have to be the expert in the room. Listen.

ADAMS (28:26)

You know, that’s I agree and that’s great advice. You it can sometimes be a challenge, I think, for people who were the subject matter expert for the majority of their career, even if it’s an early stage career, to now transition to, OK, I’m not the expert or I’m not the not the only expert in the room. And now I have to I have to take a position of, as you say, listening and being OK with asking questions and being OK with being uninformed. And can you talk a little bit about how to develop that mindset or how to get over this maybe discomfort of making that shift.

GASKINS (28:58)

I think we need to remind people that you’ve done it your whole life. When you started first grade, you were that person. When you started middle school, you were that person. High school the same, undergrad the same. It’s a part of the growth journey. So don’t think that, I’ve never, you’ve had that experience multiple times. Lean into it, because you got through it all of those times to be where you are now. You have the skills, you have the experience, but you are just now in that next step of transition. Listen. grow, learn, and then you’re going to be at the next level at the top of your career again. So don’t minimize that transition from kindergarten to first grade or to middle school or to high school. Those are exact, your experience is the same thing. You’re just an adult now.

ADAMS (29:39)

Excellent insights, Whitney. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us

GASKINS (29:42)

Yeah, I loved it. Thank you for having me.