Nordica MacCarty Oral History Interview, February 11, 2022

Partial Transcript: My name is Michael Laun and I am interviewing Nordica McCarty. Today is February 11, 2022.

Segment Synopsis: Induction of interviewer and interviewee, where the interview is taking place, the date the interview is taking place, and the reading and agreeing to the consent form.

Partial Transcript: Could you walk me through you early life before college?

Segment Synopsis: Grew up in a small town called Twig in Minnesota, 30 minutes from Duluth Minnesota. Dad was public chairman for Minnesota power and mom was a bookkeeper for a pediatrics office. Has a younger sibling named Jamie. What influenced her to pursue mechanical engineering instead of architecture.

Partial Transcript: Do you think your upbringing of conserving energy had a influence on you choosing humanitarian engineering?

Segment Synopsis: Conservation of energy as a child wasn't done as much for environmental conditions. Baccalaureate core classes that she took in her senior year helped her discover how engineering could help issues through out the world. In her fluid dynamics class her professor Dr. Mark Bryden took her on as a research assistant to look at designing cleaner wood burning cooks stoves.

Partial Transcript: What were the classes like at Iowa State?

Segment Synopsis: General classes like physics and chemistry where similar to classes at Oregon State, in terms of they were about the same size. The upper division classes had about 30 or so students. Much of class time was spent on focusing on content. Cut and dry classes that weren't supper inclusive. Her undergraduate mechanical engineering class was 3% to 5% women, which made it isolating in some ways.

Partial Transcript: What drew you towards coming to OSU?

Segment Synopsis: Original plan was to volunteer at a Oregon non-profit called Aprovecho research center after completing her undergraduate degree, then go back to school for her graduate degree. Aprovecho research center works on designing cleaner burning cooks stove and implementing them. Fell in love with Oregon and went back to graduate school for two weeks before volunteering at places in Iowa, and eventually coming back to Oregon to volunteer for Aprovecho. Her engineering skills allowed Aprovecho to now apply for grants from the EPA, essentially creating her own position at Aprovecho. She then traveled around the world with Aprovecho for 10 years. Went back to graduate school eventually after 10 years of working with Aprovecho and talking to past professors every year at a anual convention. Eventually got a scholarship to do research on cook stoves while in graduate school and was able to be a stay at home mom at the same time. When she was about done with her PhD Kendra Sharp started the Humanitarian Engineering program at OSU and they were looking for a faculty member in Mechanical Engineering and Humanitarian Engineering. She applied and got the job.

Partial Transcript: During your time at OSU have you noticed any significant changes in the social climate?

Segment Synopsis: When she started OSU got a advance grant to intentionally make the community more inclusive. She saw that OSU wanted to be a inclusive, collaborative, and diverse community. When she got here people were very open and willing to share information. Since she has been at OSU the community has gotten better, but it was never bad. She is part of a social justice reading group in MIME. There is more work to be done to make the community more inclusive but she loves that there is a effort put in to achieving that. Overall the social climate is on a good path with good leadership.

Partial Transcript: Do you feel that OSU compared to other schools has helped you better pursue your research interests?

Segment Synopsis: Yes. She was encouraged to pursue humanitarian engineering even though it isn't a clearly defined research field. Her first graduate students got dual degrees in mechanical engineering and applied anthology, which is a special degree combination. Had she been at a traditional university her work with social scientists might not have been seen as legitimate research and/or engineering. But mentors at OSU like Cindy Grimm and Kendra Sharp helped validate that her work was valid engineering/research. She made a personal affirmation to her self that she wanted to do research related to humanitarian engineering and was content with losing tenure if they didn't view her research as something that was valid. She later got tenure by unanimous approval from her fellow collogues in MIME. Her collaboration research with Aprovecho research has opened opportunities for students to get internships and spend summers working with the company. She recently took on the role of executive director at Aprovecho research, and they have been awarded a $2.5M grant to work with tribal communities to design cleaner burning wood stoves for the United States. Being at OSU helped her work with cleaner wood burning stove organizations and has allowed her to further utilize the connections she had made with these Oregon base nonprofits.

Partial Transcript: When you started at OSU humanitarian engineering was just starting. During your time here how has humanitarian engineering evolved over the years?

Segment Synopsis: When she arrived the humanitarian engineering program was ran by Kendra Sharp and some other MIME faculty who were affiliated with the program. The program had been going for about a year and was starting to get a few courses in the books with a progression towards creating a minor. Since she has been at OSU the some classes in the minor have changed and some have stayed consistent. She has designed 4 or 5 class within humanitarian engineering. She has expanded their courses and have moved from having a on campus minor to a Ecampus certificate that has about the same class requirements. This was done with he hope of seeing non traditional students trying to pursue the certificate, and trying to help them open up career paths in the field they are already in. They have recently got a endowment and regular donations from Richard and Gretchen Evans who are OSU alum. They provided the save money to start the program which has allowed her to have a faculty scholar position where she can help support students. The donations from Dick and Gretchen Evan has allowed graduate student's to travel to places and conduct research.

Partial Transcript: Being a female in a field that is predominantly male, have you ever experienced any forms of discrimination that has hurt your research or you participation in school?

Segment Synopsis: During her time in undergraduate school the most notable case is when she encountered a older student that kind of ignored her. There wasn't a whole lot of group work in her classes and she would mainly do school work by herself. She somewhat expected it with it being the 90's, and that being the sort of the accepted way if being. She notes on how it was interesting to see how different cultures viewed females. In the US many people respected her as a female in engineering but she had a experience in India where she was the engineer at a conference table full of men, and one of the men made a comment relating to that she should be in the kitchen doing the cooking on stoves and not designing the stoves. She gave it a pass and it made her thankful for the United States being more progressed in gender equality, even though we have a ways to go. Today she hasn't experienced overt discrimination, at least to her face. She has felt the effects of imposter syndrome which she noted is common in women in advance fields. She knows other women who feel or have felt the same and she knows its just a matter of believing that one deserves to be where they are at and have the same abilities as there collogues.

Partial Transcript: Do you think OSU supports evenly support women and men wanting to pursue engineering?

Segment Synopsis: Yes. All gander identities are welcomed in humanitarian engineering and engineering in general. How the material resonates with different gender identities might be different. We could improve the content to be more inclusive, but that is being worked on and will be improved.

Partial Transcript: Do you have any advice for female engineers?

Segment Synopsis: Follow what you love. You can go different directions with engineering so it is important find what you like and pursue it. Make your career the thing you like, the thing that your good at, and a thing that you can get paid for.

Partial Transcript: What is one aspect of engineering you like and dislike?

Segment Synopsis: Doing data analysis is something within engineering that she likes, while group projects and being put on the spot is something she doesn't like to do in engineering. In addition she doesn't really like thermodynamics, and CFD modeling. This comes from her personality traits and her way of learning.

Partial Transcript: How do you see humanitarian engineering progressing at OSU and how do you want to see it progress?

Segment Synopsis: Humanitarian engineering is starting to become more relevant at other schools as being part of mechanical engineering and involving other fields of engineering. At OSU they are planning to keep the minor and certificate. She is working on a board that is creating a general engineering major called engineering design for society. In the major students have a choice in what general engineering classes they take and aspect of engineering they eventually specialize in. The major plans to start in a year along with a new certificate. She is looking forward to the interdisciplinary aspects within the new major. The degree is important because it helps people learn how to work with other people in different disciplines.

Partial Transcript: Is there anything I didn't ask you about that you thought I would, or is there anything you would like to add?

Segment Synopsis: Closing remarks and consent form.