“I joined the SWE Latinos Affinity Group looking for friendship, mentorship, and guidance. This group gave me confidence and leadership skills that have helped me excel in my career,” says Myra Zhinin Rogers, the co-lead of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Latinos Affinity Group (AG).
The SWE Latinos AG creates an intentional space where members who identify as Latino, are of Hispanic or Latin American heritage, or are allies of these communities can feel seen, heard, and supported. Participants can take advantage of mentorship links, professional development workshops, leadership opportunities, and educational resources that strengthen academic persistence and career growth.
“More than a professional network, the SWE Latinos AG is a lifelong friendship circle,” Zhinin Rogers adds. “Members act like primas (cousins), sharing life experiences, attending weddings, and cheering one another on across miles. During work trips, we make it a point to meet other SWE Latinas.”
The Latinos AG is just one of 22 such groups offered by the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), a global organization focused on empowering women to succeed and advance in engineering and technology, and be recognized for their life-changing contributions as engineers and leaders. SWE’s global community of 50,000+ women engineers, students, and allies is a driving force, allowing precollege students to explore their STEM identity, college students to feel supported and encouraged, and professional engineers to advance confidently in their careers – all through an array of training and development offerings, networking opportunities, scholarships, outreach, and advocacy programs.
The ABCs of SWE
Founded in 1950, SWE celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2025 with special events, meetings, podcasts, videos, and articles. Since its founding, SWE has focused on ensuring that membership is open and welcoming to all engineers, regardless of race/ethnicity, gender, or other demographic factors. In the mid-1980s, SWE developed its first mission statement, which focused on helping women to achieve their full potential in careers as engineers and leaders, promoting engineering as a positive force in improving quality of life, and demonstrating the value of diversity.
That dedication has evolved into a focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, or DEI&B, in recognition of the fact that members must not only feel welcome, but also supported and valued for all their intersecting identities and the unique perspectives they bring to the organization and the profession, and that tapping these underrepresented populations are critical to solving the industry’s workforce shortage.
Resources for Success
Members of the Latino community can find many tailored resources at SWE, including podcasts, blogs, articles, and learning opportunities. For example, in the SWE Advance Learning Center, the 60-minute course “Getting the Job Done Sin Quemarte (Without Burnout)” focuses on the cultural biases that fuel high self-expectations in the Latinx community and other often underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Participants learn to identify common cultural biases that lead to burnout, strategies to overcome those biases, and how to build a toolkit for success without a breakdown.
Many ALC courses have been translated into Spanish, including “Buenas Prácticas para Encontrar y Conservar un Mentor (Best Practices for Finding and Keeping a Mentor)” and “Negocia Como un Jefe: Cómo Ser una Feroz Defensora de una Misma (Negotiate Like a Boss: How to Be a Fierce Self-Advocate).”
Moreover, SWE’s multistep program for teaching supervisors to lead without bias is second to none. Selena Rezvani, a recognized consultant, speaker, and author on women and leadership, presents five modules and two town halls dedicated to such topics as “Addressing Unconscious Bias in Society” and “Intercultural Fluency.”
Leading with Data
SWE is especially proud of its robust research department, which serves as a reliable resource for the latest data on issues involving women in engineering. Among the topics analyzed is the number of women earning engineering degrees at minority-serving institutions, including Hispanic-serving institutions, tracked on an interactive dashboard. SWE research also reports on engineering degree enrollments and graduates by gender and race/ethnicity at the national level, as well as data on the representation of women in the engineering workforce by race/ethnicity.
In 2021, SWE founded the Women of Color in Engineering Collaborative (WCEC) in conjunction with a number of other membership organizations, including the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. The goal of the WCEC is to bring together organizations interested in increasing the retention and advancement of women of color in the engineering workforce. In addition to tackling some of the major challenges women of color face in engineering, the WCEC seeks to build and support inclusive communities whose members believe in the benefits and strengths of a diverse engineering workforce.
In addition, the SWE Mentor Network is an exclusive global community that facilitates mentoring partnerships among members at all career levels. SWE also offers distinct global leadership training options for girls and women at all stages of their STEM career path, from secondary school to collegiate, academic, and industry stages.
Making Waves
Doris Moreno Maldonado, the other co-lead of the Latinos AG, points out that the Latina community at SWE remains engaged and committed even over great distances. “Virtual engagement is strong through mentorship circles, career panels, interview workshops, and networking sessions,” she says. Social media posts allow the AG to connect with college students, offer guidance, celebrate wins, and continue to grow the community.
“The SWE Latinos AG effectively keeps Latinas engaged in SWE and STEM,” Moreno Maldonado says. “Today, we are making waves nationally and globally, collaborating with SWE Costa Rica and SWE Ecuador in Quito. Together, we are expanding access, elevating Latina voices, and building a legacy of leadership beyond borders.”
SWE offers multiple membership opportunities. Join us.
