This longitudinal field experiment examined the impact of female peer mentors on undergraduate female engineering students (N = 150). Students were randomly assigned to a female peer mentor, a male peer mentor, or no mentor for their first year. Results showed that having a female peer mentor was associated with improved psychological experiences, increased aspirations for postgraduate studies, enhanced emotional well-being, greater success in securing engineering internships, and higher retention in STEM majors through graduation and one year post-graduation, compared to the other groups. This low-cost intervention highlights the long-term benefits of female peer mentoring in supporting women's success in engineering.

Deborah J. Wu, Kelsey C. Thiem, Nilanjana Dasgupta