We all know about the right-hand rule. Typically introduced in the first physics course you’ll ever take, it is a simplifying assumption that arises as a consequence of an arbitrarily-assigned 3-D coordinate system. We need to choose one direction as positive and one as negative, and using your right hand is a good way as any to enable universal consistency. (note: the right-hand rule is also important in electrical engineering to determine the direction of current flow and magnetic fields)

Here’s a couple images that typically are used to illustrate the right-hand rule:

<–From wikipedia

From ExploreLearning–>

What gender do these cartoony-hands look like they belong to?

At left – this hand looks relatively unisex, but decidedly unfeminine. The image on the right is definitely the hand of a cartoon man. Wearing a boring sweater that’s slightly poofy, to boot.

Now contrast this with this image, from interactive mathematics:

Does this look different?

Note the red nail polish that ostensibly says “woman” – does that affect your conscious thought process? What about the subconscious?

I have undertaken surveys of several common engineering textbooks to get a feeling for the images that are typically used within. Engineering texts like to show men doing things – rarely do they use women, even cartoon women, to illustrate a word problem or concept. A scan of a common Statics book (Bedford & Fowler, 3rd ed., 2002) reveals that over 600 pages of text, only 6 women are definitively pictured and the ratio of men to women displayed is over 10:1.

Clearly there is a discrepancy between the diversity of the images shown and the desired diversity in engineering. The demographics represented within engineering examples do matter – they affect how we internalize knowledge and create foundations for our understanding.

The right-hand rule is just one example of how male models are typical in engineering and science concept introductions. Another simplifying assumption, this time on the part of textbook authors and illustrators, to choose a thick wrist and stout nails as the default instead of anything distinctly feminine. I wonder sometimes – what if it was different? What if every time we were introduced to a new idea it was through a female body or feminine image? How different would it feel to learn from an example that looks like me?

Just as the assignment of positive/negative is fundamentally arbitrary, so is the use of male images as the standard models for engineering knowledge and information. While once this was a simplifying assumption as most engineering students were male, this is no longer the desired situation. It’s time to stop being lazy and going with the images that engineers have always used, the assumptions of normality that have always existed within the field. It’s time to make a change, to start now, to encourage new viewpoints and possibilities in engineering, math, and science!

In 2012, please consider the images and examples that represent engineering knowledge in your life. Are they affected by assumptions of males as the norm? Are you ready to challenge the assumptions that have been foundational in the engineering field? As the saying goes, “when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME” – let’s stop being asses, and instead be trailblazers in encouraging women into science, math, engineering, and technology. It’s about effing time!! =)

It’s the end of summer, which means back to school! If you’re a senior in high school, senior in college, switching grad schools, or thinking about going back to school, it’s time to apply to colleges and grad programs. As mentioned in a previous post, the gender balance of a program is an important factor on the overall experience for both men and women, and should be considered when picking programs.

Engineering programs face a particular challenge in this area, but some programs are definitely more balanced than others. The representation of women in engineering programs has been slowly increasing over the years. No, seriously, REALLY slowly. Check out the NSF Women participation in CS and Engineering data from the last 20 years:

In 2008, the national average for women’s enrollment in engineering programs was 18.5% for undergraduate and 21.6% Masters/23% PhD for graduate students. I’m guessing it has not change significantly over the last 3 years. With these numbers in mind, let’s see how the top engineering universities and smaller undergrad-focused schools measure up. The percentages listed below are the most up-to-date numbers that I could fine online. Note that colleges vary in exactly what major they include within Engineering, so check out the sources if you want more info on a particular school.

Percentage Women in the Engineering College of Universities

MIT: 40.6% undergrad/16.8% grad (source)

Caltech: 37% undergrad/23% grad (source)

Cornell: 30.2% undergrad, 25.4% grad (source)

Stanford: 29.9% undergrad/23.2% grad (source)

UC Berkeley: 23% (source)

Georgia Tech: 23% (source)

University of Michigan: 22% undergrad/20.5% grad (source)

Purdue: 19.8% undergrad, 20% grad (source)

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: 17-20% (source)

Percentage Women in Small Undergraduate-focused Colleges

Olin College of Engineering: 44% (source)

Harvey Mudd: 35% (source)

Cooper Union: 35% (source)

Rose-Hulman: 20% (source)

All Women’s Colleges with Specialized Engineering Programs

Smith College: 100% women! (link)

I also wanted to include Smith College, which as far as I know is the only all-women, 4-year US institution with a specialized engineering program (specific engineering majors, not just a single general engineering degree). So, if you’re looking at colleges for undergraduate or graduate engineering programs, at least check out the gender ratio in the programs you are considering. Faculty gender ratio is another important number to look at. A clear presence of women makes a world of difference in the academic and social environment of the college. It can also say a lot about the administration’s attitude towards the value of more women in the field. It’s the next 4 years of your life (or more for grad school), so choose wisely.

I came across an article in IEEE Spectrum about how Germany Faces a Shortage of Engineers. In the article they clearly state the societal need for more engineers:

a steadily rising demand for developing sustainable mobility and energy solutions are also contributing to [the shortage of engineers].

The article later states that they are failing to get more women to be engineers, which would help solve the problem:

“Many girls are more interested in helping people and society and don’t see this possibility in engineering,” Schanz says. “It will remain very hard to attract women to engineering—much harder than reducing the dropout rate.”

There is a clear need to solve the world’s energy problems through engineering–exactly the motivation a lot of women look for when choosing a career. Yet the perspective is that it will still be hard to attract women to engineering?  When I read this article, it was glaringly obvious that we should be using the global energy needs to entice more women to become engineers!

Why is there such a disconnect between engineering and helping society? In my mind, engineering is directly related to improving society and helping people, and it can affect society on a greater level than other professions that help one person at a time. Maybe it’s because engineering is so often thought of and advertised as building “cool” things, like bikes and cars. The “cool” factor is not enough to motivate people interested in “helping the world.”

There are numerous studies that show a key factor for women in choosing their career path, even from a young age, is the ability to help people and society through their work. In my personal experience and in working with math-and-sciencey girls, understanding that engineering is intricately linked to helping society is crucial in deciding to become an engineer. I distinctly remember, in my second year of college when we were declaring majors, reasoning with myself how electrical engineering would help me “make a difference.” Even then, I didn’t have a full picture of what I could achieve through engineering, but I convinced myself enough to stick with it, and I’m glad I did.

To really start to attracting women to engineering, the image needs to change from “building cool stuff” to “solving the world’s problems.” Because if we’re actually going to solve the world’s problems, we definitely need more engineers…

In graduate school at my large research-oriented institution, I’ve noticed that a lot of people I have met (both men and women) do not acknowledge that women (or minorities and international students) have a different experience in engineering education or industry than the dominant demographic, usually white males. I would like to believe that there are no differences based on gender, but it is difficult when I am constantly reminded that I am an oddity in engineering. When I meet people and the first thing they say when they learn I am an electrical engineer is “Why did *you* decide to do engineering?” or “Do you *like* electrical engineering?” Because, clearly, this women in engineering anomaly must be explained! But I digress…

What I really want to do is show and explain the kind of different experiences that many women have in engineering in a positive and informative way rather than in a way that might make people feel attacked. So, I thought, what about web comics?

PhD Comics by Jorge Cham are great and I love his strong woman engineering grad student character, Cecilia.

You are the one of the only (or few) women in the class and if you do poorly or say something wrong it will be more than just you being judged; it will be all of WOMAN KIND! No pressure.

It’s a minor thing, but anything having to do with clothing sizing (t-shirts, lab coats, etc) always defaults to larger men’s sizes, so petite women just look ridiculous. Don’t forget, engineers come is small sizes too!

I recently discovered Wasted Talent by Angela Melick, who drew comics about her engineering undergrad experience. One thing I like about her comics is that they are a lot of the stereotypical engineering scenarios but with a nerdy, anime-loving, game-playing, imaginative female spin on it.

You’re the only woman in a study session or group project, and inevitably the penis joke or innuendo happens. Do I laugh, smile, chime in, look unhappy, or have no reaction? It’s already awkward regardless of how you react.

Support networks of other women in engineering are essential for knowing that you’re not going it alone as the only woman in a mostly-male discipline. And, they help you realize that it’s ok to be feminine and girly; you’re still a fierce engineer!

These are just a few comics that caught my eye, but I’m sure there are tons, so feel free to add others in the comments!

I was helping out at an engineering expo where elementary to high school students and community members are invited to see engineering demos and experiments put on by college students. I was running a demo that used a stationary bike to power different kinds of lights to show how much power each light technology uses. All ages of kids and adults came through the exhibit and most of them were eager to get on the bike and power the lights.

I don’t usually interact with kids, so it was interesting to see how some were a little too eager to get on the bike and would fight with their friends to get on, while others asked politely if they could try it and took turns with their friends. One girl, who was probably late elementary school, was with her family and looked pretty interested in the demo. I asked her if she wanted to ride the bike and power the demo. Her face initially lit up, but then a wave of shyness came over her and she stepped back and said “no, that’s ok.”

I realized, suddenly, that this used to be me! I remember really wanting to do something, but letting shyness and a “I’m not sure if I am supposed to be doing this” feeling hold me back. This especially happened with things that my older brother would do, like playing video games or card games that seemed to be “for boys, not girls.” I didn’t want this little girl to think that science and engineering “wasn’t for girls.”

It may seem like a little thing. “So what if she doesn’t ride the stupid bike?” But, it’s this kind of subtle encouragement or discouragement that can make a difference. The moments where you are deciding between “go for it” and “just stay in your comfort zone” can be important moments in life; like asking that person you like out on a date, initiating that crucial conversation that you’ve been avoiding, or simply raising your hand to ask that question that the rest of the class is too afraid to ask. Maybe it’s just me, but I think everyone, especially engineers, should be able to take a little risk. Holding back for no good reason just seems like you are missing opportunities, but I know it took me a long time to get over my shyness and apprehension.

After recognizing what this girl was feeling, I was determined to get her to ride the bike for the demo. Fortunately, her father was also encouraging her to give it a try. I didn’t exactly know what to say to persuade her, so I just kept saying, “try it! It will be fun!” With enough pressure a.k.a. “strong encouragement” from the two of us, she got up on the bike. She had a big smile on her face as she pedaled and I turned on the different lights. I asked her if she could feel how the lights that took more power make it harder to pedal and she nodded happily. After she got off the bike, she even thanked me (with prompting from her father), but I could tell she was glad she did it.

The dreamer in me hopes that this experience has planted a seed in her brain with a message that “engineering is cool! And, I bet I can do it too.” The subtle messages and encouragement are just as important as the overt ones. Supportive parents and mentors are pretty important too. I’m no expert on child development, but I think we should encourage kids to not be afraid of trying something a little out of their comfort zones. This is probably something even us non-kids should try to do more often too.

(Clarification: I definitely only mean encouraging positive, responsible things. Remember kids, engineering is good! Drugs are bad…)

Happy Take Your Kid to Work Day! If I was at an engineering workplace today I would try to show kids the beauty and excitement inherent in engineering design: keep them out of the meetings, the arguments, the useless beating of dead horses… instead be proud and demonstrate the artifacts and tools that are part of the fun of being an engineer, show off the brainstorming and grandiose blue-sky ideas that can solve real-world problems, and introduce the kids to the engineers who are more than blue shirt and khaki uniformed Dilberts with pocket protectors and thick glasses.

Sorry things have been a bit quiet on the blog front lately. Many recent changes/excuses (for me, deciding on grad school/future life path, re-arranging all furniture and lifestyle to start a yoga studio out of my home, basketball playoffs, general spring distractions) but don’t worry, we’re still here, and still writing.

So much interesting news and data to ponder recently – some links for you:

1) Laura Fizpatrick’s article for Time Magazine, published Tuesday, April 20th – Equal Pay Day. Many of the articles written to describe the pay gap take a broad view – comparing all of womens salaries to all of men’s, with just a few adjusted statistics for unionized workers or certain specific industries. I would love SWE or some other organization (nonprofit research groups like Catalyst?) to do a specifically detailed investigation into the pay gap in engineering. Though statisticians may be uneasy as there’s never enough data points on the female end to balance the male numbers, wouldn’t it be great to know?

A similar article by the Numbers Guy in the Wall Street Journal includes a chart that has a category for “programmers”:

They’re at the top of the list! Female programmers make 92.7% of what men in a comparable position earn. Better, but still plenty of ground to make up. Do you think other types of engineers (civil, aerospace, mechanical, electrical, chemical, materials, petroleum, etc. etc..) would be same, above, or below?  I’ll start trolling around for the data..

2) Four Women in Space Sets Record on April 5, 2010 – Sweet milestone, but as this blog post at G is 4 Girl points out, maybe someday this won’t actually be such monumental news…

3) Smile, Boys! It Would Make the World So Much Prettier For Us Women! – Have you ever been told to smile at work by a male colleague? It has happened to me, too many times, and I would imagine many other young women engineers share this experience as many older colleagues, especially, don’t seem to understand how ridiculously inappropriate and annoying it is to be told to smile all the time. Thus Spake Zuska has a great dissection and explanation of this phenomenon at the link.

4) Upcoming Science and Math Activities in the Age of Obama – every day, I seem to hear about more and more celebrations for young people about science, math, and sometimes engineering.

Science Club For Girls has a big listing of Science & Math Activities mostly in Massachusetts and the Boston Area for the rest of April and May.

National Lab Day – the first ever will be celebrated on May 12, 2010. The website has a searchable database of projects around the US with the intention of matching students and teachers needing resources for their proposed projects with professional scientists and engineers. Check out what’s happening in your area!

USA Science & Engineering Festival – another first ever event sponsored by the Obama administration – October 10 to 24, 2010, the USA’s first national science festival! The focus is in the DC area but it looks like satellite celebrations are slowly springing up across the nation and beyond. Check out the contests for K-12 students as well as anyone — for instance, you could write a jingle for the USA Science and Engineering festival and win $500! Entry deadline is April 30th ;)

This popped up on my radar today:

The Rocket Project – sponsored by heavy hitters Sony and Intel, no less.

After sharing the link with a few engineering friends, I received a wide range of reactions… from “Wow, they obviously selected for diversity in this campaign” to “what does this have to do with the Sony Vaio?” And “why didn’t they show any women in the first 50 seconds” to “what’s with the classic white man engineering mentor and use of engineering clichés like drinking from a fire hose?”

My response, while partially skeptical due to the fancy production and editing, is predominately sentimental. I went to the homepage of the project (http://discover.sonystyle.com/rocket/) and watched all of the individual team members’ 50 second video biographies. And they are all so sweet! Hearing these young engineers talk about what excites them about engineering, about math, about science… about how they are nerds but they don’t care… about how they love robots and can’t wait to be an engineer and get paid for building them and having fun at the same time (Steven)… about how they have other interests besides school and engineering… its inspiring!  The first 30 seconds or so of Julia’s biography definitely resonated with me:

So, does this mean I am a sucker for well-produced videos featuring young engineers?  Well, yeah. Is that a bad thing? Well, it could certainly be worse. As Julia says, “that’s okay… that’s why I’m here.” She definitely has that right.

The rocket “launches” on April 12th, and they have photos from mid-Feb documenting the process along the way posted to the main website. I’ll be looking for more sentimentality-inducing videos in a few weeks and will keep you posted ;)

I realize many of my posts have been somewhat… negative lately… in analyzing, remembering, and describing the current state of women in engineering. To balance it out, I thought I’d throw in a more uplifting type anecdote. So, this is the story of how I was taught by a male supervisor to stop making a fool of myself in the machine shop – and its all about leverage!

I worked in the college machine shop during the first couple of years of my engineering education. It was fun and engineeringly-cool, though I didn’t feel completely comfortable holding my own in any around the shop banter and definitely wasn’t one of the guys. Compounded by my own self-consciousness and lack of confidence in my abilities in the shop, there were a few tasks that I specifically dreaded because I didn’t know how to do them with my body.

For instance – have you ever used a milling machine? It was one of my favorite things in the shop, super viscerally satisfying, awesomely powerful yet requiring a delicate and careful touch (like all machining, really). Yet for all that I enjoyed using the milling machine to make parts, I dreaded working on it because there was one step of the break-down process I wasn’t strong enough to do…I thought.

To remove a collet that’s installed in a decent-sized mill, you have to loosen the hex drawbar nut that is at the very tip top of the machine (~70″ from the ground or higher) while simultaneously applying a brake to the spindle at the same height so that the nut you’re trying to loosen doesn’t just spin freely with the assembly. Suffice it to say, you have to do this:

At the end of each work or class session when it was time to pack and clean up, I would literally hang from the brake lever, swatting at the wrench attached to the drawbar, praying somehow to generate enough torque to loosen the damn nut. It usually took more than a few tries, the entire time me thinking “I hope no one’s watching, I hope no one’s watching, I look so weak and buffonish….”and furtively checking after each try to play it cool and make sure no one saw me flailing away at this wrench and brake above my head.

I was too proud to ask for help – none of the guys needed help! At that point, I was trying really hard to fit in and not call any extra attention to myself, plus I had a lot of misplaced pride and thought that doing stuff alone without help would make me me tougher and more “respectable”. I had seen my fellow student workers them do it and knew they could without any problems, so I assumed that I should be able to as well despite being a foot shorter and at least 50 pounds lighter then them.

Eventually, thankfully, my shop supervisor noticed my tarzan moves and taught me an amazing lesson in leverage. He brought over a stepstool, told me to stand on it and give that nut one more try now that my arms were in line with the center of my body instead of fully extended over my head. Simple, right? But SO effective. By pulling my arms into the same plane as my torso, I was able to use the strength of my entire chest, core, shoulders and arms (as opposed to just my arms) to hold the brake and loosen the nut. And it didn’t require him doing it for me – just handing me a tool to even out the mechanical advantage. He knew I was physically strong enough to do it, but just didn’t understand how to position myself in the situation.

I had never previously noticed that there were stepstools in the shop since I hadn’t ever seen anyone use them before. (And I was ashamed/scared/too stupid to look for one or think about using one?) But, come to think of it, they had mentioned something in the machining textbook about positioning yourself in the same plane with respect to the object of your work.

~~~  a brief side note and at home demo ~~~

In addition to being a female engineer, I am also a yoga instructor. As so much of yoga speaks to me biomechanically as proofs of leverage and force balances, this whole problem with the mill strikes me as also telling of how unconnected and ignorant of my own body I was back then.

One of the fundamental principles of yoga (and physics, statics, and dynamics as it turns out) is that hugging to the midline or bringing items in from the periphery makes you more stable and gives you more power. You can easily do a little experiment to verify this:

And its also an excellent illustration of forces, moment arms and torque! Remember that torque (τ) is the (cross) product of a force (F) and its moment arm (r). Let’s draw some free body diagrams to analyze further….

So  – to recap – my reasons for not knowing how to loosen the nut from the spindle were:

1) I was too lame to ask for help.
2) I didn’t know how to use my body to maximize my leverage and strength
3) I didn’t know how to apply the physics and math principles in my own body.

And, thankfully, the shop guy handed me a stepstool and told me to get on it. An elegant solution, to be sure, that taught me much more than just how to remove a collet from a mill. =)

I was recently accused of being “too girly” – not by an older man in the workplace, but by a young woman on a high school For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Robotics team. While serving as an industry mentor for this team, I had taken the young woman and a male team member to the local hardware store to look around for mechanical inspiration. While both students loved the pipe fittings, kinetic sculptures, and multi-jointed lamps, they were both shocked when I suggested we head to the floral department next. “Flowers?” Exclaimed the young woman, “Why would you ever want to go look at flowers?” I set off by myself to admire the hanging planters and cool fountain designs, taking note of the non-trivial engineering design and development involved in bringing those floral products to market. Upon rejoining the students, the young woman again remarked, “Ann, that’s so weird. Looking at flowers? You are too girly!”

It is striking to me that this young woman had such overwhelmingly negative sentiment towards the femininity, the “girly-ness” represented by flowers. Her statements indicate her belief that flowers do not belong in engineering and her conviction that being girly is a negative attribute unbecoming of a robotics team mentor/engineer.

While not surprising, this firmly rooted belief that “engineering is not girly” is still disheartening. I had hoped that in the last ten years, since I initially joined a high school robotics team and fell in love with the engineering design process, that some of the efforts of industry and government to encourage young women and minorities in engineering would have had a more perceptible impact. One of FIRST’s organizational goals is to increase the participation of women and minorities in engineering. While they have initiated several programs to start teams in low income neighborhoods, it would appear that the image of engineers as middle class white men is not changing any time soon.

FIRST has limited data on the demographics of the students, coaches, mentors, and volunteers participating in their programs each year. While they excitedly publish the total number of people involved (38,000 high school students in 2008) and show steady growth over the last 17 years of competition, it is unknown whether they have truly increased the numbers of women and underrepresented minorities participating.

Several studies commissioned by FIRST and carried out by the Center for Youth Development at Brandeis University have painted an overall positive picture of FIRST’s impact in low-income communities and undeniable effect in getting students, both male and female, interested in engineering careers. However, these studies do not claim any improvement, year over year, in female participation in FIRST. An independent study conducted by Georgia Tech collected demographic information to examine student participation in FIRST Lego League, a competition for 9-14 year olds, for two years (2006-2007). Their findings were that while the overall number of students participating increased between subsequent years, the overall percentage of female and minority participation was consistent between 25-27% and 14-18%, respectively. The Georgia Tech research went on to study the gender and minority balance on each individual team, finding that “very few boys (~3%) are in the minority on their team, whereas between 30% and 40% of girls are in the minority.”

Anecdotally, it seems that the gender and minority balance for the older high-school age FIRST Robotics Competition may be even worse. By necessity – FIRST reflects the long time legacy of predominately white-male engineering culture in its coaches, mentors, and volunteers, as the available pool of experienced engineers willing to donate their time for free is mostly male and Caucasian. While FIRST has trademarked the ideas of “gracious professionalism” and “coopertition,” they have no name or training to reinforce the novel idea that women can be engineers as well, that you can in fact be girly and an engineer at the same time.

FIRST’s vision statement is “To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes.” Unfortunately, I think what may be more pertinent is to transform the culture of science, technology and engineering to welcome young people of all gender, race, and upbringing. There are some signs that FIRST is headed in the right direction – just last month, a new partnership between FIRST and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) was announced with emphasis on increasing the number of female competitors. Though there are no specific details on initiatives or immediate changes, at least the organizations are officially joined on a formal level. Also, new for the 2010 FIRST Robotics Competition is a self-registration system that will hopefully allow the real numbers and individual demographics of each FIRST participant to be known and tracked for years to come.

[FIRST 2008 Annual Report]
[Brandeis FIRST study #1]
[Brandeis FIRST study #2]
[Georgia Tech study]
[FIRST Trademarks Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition]
[Urban Dictionary: Gracious Professionalism]
[Urban Dictionary: Coopertition]
[FIRST, SWE Form Alliance]

In a standard signals and systems course the topic of image processing using signal analysis is usually covered. Signals and systems can be a very math heavy course and gets abstract fairly quickly. Since many people are visual learners and like to see the real applications to this abstract math, image processing is a great way to make those connections and see math/engineering really do something interesting.

In our class, our awkward male teaching assistant started talking enthusiastically about image signal processing and how much we were going to like it. This particular teaching assistant was often excited about random things we learned in class, but was extra excited about this topic. He showed us an example of the image we would be working with. A “classic” picture in image signal processing commonly referred to as Lena, a face and bare shoulder of a young woman in a large feathery hat. He went on to explain that the girl’s face and the feathers in her hat provided contrasting textures, good for seeing the effects of image processing on various textures. He then proceeded to explain the very interesting history of this image. The guys (and I do mean all males, not the general “guys”) that were doing research on this topic originally needed an image with various textures to work with and, so, used something they had lying around the office: a playboy centerfold. Yup, that hat is the only thing Lena is wearing. Though, they “modestly” cropped the picture to just her face, which is still the standard picture used today.

To me, this exemplifies the boy’s club background in math, science, and engineering. I was appalled that something so blatantly aimed at the immature straight male would still be standard in our present-day, supposedly gender-unbiased curriculum. There are no barriers for women to be respected in math, science, and engineering today? Bullshit. Women are still fighting against the boy’s club mentality rooted in the history of these technical fields. And, unfortunately, only time and women who refuse to be turned away by such an environment will change that.

For the assignment in my signal and systems course, I decided to make a statement by using my own image for the assignment. I wanted to counter the female porn star image with a male porn star, but the only one I knew was Jeff Stryker the gay male porn star (maybe another statement about our society) thanks to one of Margaret Cho’s comedy acts. So, I found a full body nude picture of Mr. Stryker and “modestly” cropped it above the waist. I then did the image processing assignment using this picture, and wrote a note to our teaching assistant about how I disliked the connotations of the Lena picture and decided to use my own porn image that better fit my perspective. I still do not know if he really got the point I was trying to make, but I’ve never gotten to look at gay porn for a homework assignment before, so at least it was interesting. All I know is that if I ever teach a signals and system course, I definitely won’t be using Lena as my image of choice. I’m still debating whether I’d require my class to the use Jeff Stryker image or not, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.