From Classrooms to Cribs: How Engineering Faculty Embrace Parenthood

Over the course of 16 months, starting in 2023, seven faculty members in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University became pregnant. Spanning three of the four engineering departments at Duke, the group included Siobhan Oca, Leila Bridgeman, Xiaoyue Ni, Michela Geri, Crystal Noel, Emily Wenger and Jessilyn Dunn, all of whom announced they were expecting children before the end of 2024.

What they didn’t expect was for every member of the group to also give birth to a baby girl.

“We were the last ones, and we didn’t know the gender of our baby until she was born,” said Geri, an assistant professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science (MEMS). “There was suspense until the end.”

As the pregnancy announcements initially began, a few of the women formed a group chat where they could send updates about their pregnancies, provide helpful recommendations and even answer questions as new faculty members joined the group. But after all the girls were born, the chat transformed into one full of baby photos, suggestions for group play dates and advice for the new parents as the children passed different milestones.

“We were in a unique situation with all of us going through this huge change at the same time, and we wanted to take advantage of it,” said Oca, the director of master’s studies and an assistant professor of the practice in the MEMS department. “We were able to form our own small community to support and uplift one another, and it was really special.”

But the new parents didn’t just find support within this group––they also credit the wider Duke Engineering community’s efforts to help them navigate this major change in their lives.

The Balancing Act

Teaching classes. Grading. Leading lab meetings. Submitting grants. Editing research papers. Reviewing research projects. Faculty meetings. Traveling to conferences. Organizing presentations. Attending lectures. These are just a few of the tasks engineering professors complete on a regular basis, and this doesn’t even include the everyday work of answering emails, taking phone calls or meeting with students. Being a faculty member can be more than a full-time job.

But all that work can still pale in comparison to the never-ending role of being a parent.

“Parenthood changes everything,” said Noel, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. “Balancing my career with parenthood is a work in progress, and it will probably continue to be a work in progress for a long time. There are some aspects specifically about being faculty that can make achieving that balance difficult.”

Prior to the birth of her daughter, Noel estimates that she was traveling at least once a month to attend a conference or grant meeting. She freely admits that level of travel is no longer feasible for her––at least for right now. She’s also had to become much more flexible when it comes to making time to apply for grant submissions to fund her research, a process that is both time-intensive and very deadline oriented.

“There’s no turning things in late to the National Science Foundation,” she said. “When it comes to balancing my time, I have to be really flexible now to make sure I meet those deadlines and expectations in terms of assessing priorities. What do I need to make room for now versus what can wait? I notice that I’m making a lot more of those smaller decisions every single day. I’m riding those waves instead of trying to fight them.”

“You don’t realize how much free time you have before you become a parent,” said Oca, who had her first daughter as a PhD student at Duke Engineering before joining the faculty. “It quickly disappears once you have children, but then you’re immediately forced to become more efficient.”

Oca uses the metaphor of juggling to explain how she thinks of her priorities between parenthood and teaching. Some tasks are glass balls, while some are rubber balls. The rubber balls can be dropped without too much consequence, but dropping a glass ball––which could be missing a work deadline or an important parenting event––can have more significant repercussions.

While this balancing act may be familiar to other parents, it’s by no means an easy feat.

“My productivity declined over the last year, and I’m still working on ways to pick that back up,” said Ni, an assistant professor in MEMS. “My husband and I are both faculty members, so we have a certain level of flexibility with our schedules, but when you’re both busy and working on very little sleep, balance seems like a very far-off concept.”

Even without the numerous other life changes, the initial sleep deprivation that comes with having a newborn can make any job feel impossible. For David Carlson, the Yoh Family Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the lack of sleep was the most challenging part about the transition to parenthood. Carlson and his wife had their first child in 2018. At the time, he’d been working at Duke for just over a year and was still in the midst of setting up his lab. Reflecting back, he estimates that he was working 60-to-70-hour weeks to get everything organized and running.

“There are no easy parts of having a newborn, but sleep deprivation hit me really hard,” he said. “Our lab would have our weekly meetings, and I’d feel absolutely useless. But I knew I still needed to be there to help make sure things were up and running. I was still responsible for my staff and students. I had a finite amount of time, so I was forced to get very good at being efficient.”

But for some faculty, parenthood hasn’t just been an exercise in balance––it’s also influenced how they teach their students. For example, Bavand Keshavarz, an assistant professor in MEMS and Michela Geri’s husband, has noticed similarities between the ways his daughter learns new concepts and the process of inductive reasoning that students practice in his courses.

“Our daughter is almost a year old, so we’re seeing her brain process these very basic concepts in her own life for the first time,” he said. “But you see the same kind of inductive learning and guided discovery happen with our students when they learn something for the first time. It’s made me consider ways that I can change my pedagogical style from being the “sage on the stage” to guiding the students towards discovering the new material by themselves and in some ways helping them to reignite their innate joy of discovery.”

No More Split Identities

Pregnancy can be an isolating experience. Most couples don’t announce that they are expecting until they reach the second trimester, which begins 14 weeks into the pregnancy. But it’s during those first 13 weeks that women may need the most help. Miscarriage risks are highest during the first trimester, and a majority of pregnant people experience debilitating nausea, food aversions, heartburn, vomiting, and extreme fatigue during and even beyond that time.

“I thought life would change after the baby got here, but I was very wrong,” said Geri. “Like many other pregnant women, I had a difficult first trimester. We’d initially wanted to keep the news to ourselves, but at eight weeks we decided to tell our department head, Cate Brinson, who was very excited for us. She was immediately supportive and asked how she could help.”

Brinson, the Sharon C. and Harold L. Yoh, III Distinguished Professor of MEMS, helped Geri and Keshavarz connect with other faculty in the department and across Duke Engineering who were about to or had recently become parents. As they felt more comfortable sharing the news, senior faculty who had older children also reached out with parenting advice and stories, which the couple found especially helpful.

“We felt that there was a community who really cared for us and our young family, and we were able to keep that in the back of our minds throughout the pregnancy and birth,” said Keshavarz. “We felt that our colleagues really cared for our daughter as a new member of the community, which we really appreciated.”

Noel informed her faculty mentor, Christopher Monroe, the Gilhuly Family Presidential Distinguished Professor in ECE, early into her pregnancy. Although Noel never ended up needing anyone to cover her classes, having someone who knew her situation and was able to provide backup helped relieve some of the stress she was facing in the first trimester. After she felt comfortable sharing her pregnancy more broadly, Noel was also able to speak with other female faculty who’d already navigated some of the career challenges that early parenthood posed.

“They had a lot of advice for me about taking leave and teaching relief and coordinating those logistics, and having them show me this was a viable path was very helpful,” she said. “They really helped build up my confidence.”

Beyond support from faculty, many of the parents in Duke Engineering credit the culture of the school for helping their children feel welcomed on campus. Oca’s daughters often attend the final Senior Design Showcases at the end of every semester, where they are excited to interact with Oca’s students and teaching assistants and to see the robotics tools they make.

“I think being able to show my kids what I do for work makes a big difference, especially a as a woman in engineering,” said Oca. “My kids love watching ‘Daniel Tiger,’ and in an episode the mom goes off to work. My kids just assumed the mom teaches robots because their mom works with robots. You can see the impact at home when your kids are welcomed into these spaces.”

Carlson also enjoys bringing his children to campus, with the Duke Engineering Co-Lab being a favorite location for them to visit. As they’ve gotten older, he’s also started bringing them to Duke sporting events like women’s basketball games, and they participated in a track club led by Duke Track and Field students.

“My kids had a ball, and we ended up taking them to a track meet where they got to see their coaches compete,” he said. “It made Duke feel like a big home for them, and they loved it.”

“I can’t speak for the experience at other schools, but here at Duke the community truly recognizes you’re a whole person with an identity that encompasses being a professor,” said Geri. “Being a parent isn’t viewed as a distraction. We felt from the start like we had a community that was excited for us and showed us that this full life was possible.”