Kaia Findlay 0:00
Welcome to the campus energy and sustainability podcast. In each episode, we talk with leading campus professionals, thought leaders, engineers and innovators addressing the unique challenges and opportunities facing higher ed and corporate campuses. Our discussions will range from energy conservation and efficiency to planning and finance, for building science to social science, from energy systems to food systems. We hope you're ready to learn, share and ultimately accelerate your institution towards solutions. I'm Kaia Findlay, the Podcast and Communications Manager at Fovea, an energy, carbon and business planning firm. So today's episode is the second in our series on women's experiences working in the sustainability field. And our guest host is once again Sarah Barr who interviews Kayla Dawson. Sarah, what can you tell us about this episode?

Sarah Barr 0:50
This episode is pretty similar to the one we just heard with Bonnie Benson from UCLA. It's about experiencing the engineering field, sustainability field from the perspective of a woman. And Kayla has a lot of interesting things to share. Some things are similar along the same lines as what Bonnie said, but we're also going to hear some new insights today.

Kaia Findlay 1:12
So and I know that this was a slightly difficult interview for you to conduct and to edit. Why was that?

Sarah Barr 1:21
I think a lot of these topics are just, they're hard to talk about, first of all, gender, you know, is such a huge encompassing topic. It's hard to touch on everything. We honestly couldn't decide what we wanted to talk about and what we wanted to focus on.

Kaia Findlay 1:34
Definitely. Well, I think you uncovered some really great topics and really important topics to discuss. So I'm looking forward to hearing the whole episode.

Sarah Barr 1:41
Thank you. I hope you enjoy it. hope everyone enjoys it. Oh, hi, Kayla. How are you today? We're glad to have you on the show.

Kayla Dawson 1:49
Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Sarah Barr 1:52
So just to kick things off, could you give me a quick dive into your background and what it is you do?

Kayla Dawson 1:57
Sure. I'm educated as a Engineering, civil environmental engineering and I also have a biology degree. For work in the last decade or so I've primarily focused on renewable energy, including wind energy and carbon capture. I've also worked across a variety of different industries and types of workplaces from private startups through to public utilities and municipalities. So I've gained a breadth of knowledge across a lot of different facets of society and engineering in general, always looking to focus on the problem of climate change. Is that's been a main focus of my my life and my career,

Sarah Barr 2:45
is that what sort of got you into engineering is your concern about climate change?

Kayla Dawson 2:50
I was I can recall back being around seven years old like for as long as I can remember thinking, having an initial thought about the environment when an area of land near to my home in rural Manitoba was being developed, and I can recall the trees being cut and, and noticing the impact on the environment. So yeah, I think it's always been a part of who I am to care about humans relationship with the environment. And through that interest I moved through, you know, biology, education, and then a civil environmental engineering education, always with the intent of working to support that relationship between humans and the environment and support, support our sustainability. So as my career and my education developed, climate change, rose to the top as as the main concern.

Sarah Barr 3:47
Well, I guess let me just start off by asking you what your experience has been like working as a woman in engineering, what are some themes or issues that have sort of characterized that experience for you

Kayla Dawson 3:58
What being an engineer and being a female has taught me is to see how being different than the status quo is received. And that's allowed me to see the patterns and the feedback loops of what happens when you look to do things differently, and how people react to that. And how people approach and interact with something that is different. Some of the ways that this has manifested has been in mentorship situations. I've noted that some of the mentorship situations, provide information and a way to maintain a status quo to maintain how it has been before and to say to the person and me as a woman. This is how you integrate into how we do things. And so I've heard some statistics that say that when Men, mentor men, they talk about strategy. But when men mentor women, they tell them how to behave and how to act. And so to me, I've had some of those experiences where the mentorship relationship has been about integration into the existing system, as opposed to a back and forth, where two people are coming together with varied perspectives, looking at the problem putting the problem in the center of the table and saying, how do we solve this? And that, to me, as an engineer, we are problem solvers. And so I'm always looking to put the problem at the center and for everybody to come at it with their perspective, but to integrate all those perspectives into the best possible solution, and so sometimes in the mentorship relationships, I haven't really felt that happening. And it's it's not actually The only male mentors where I've had this, this feeling like it's it's also happened with female mentors. And so that's where I become very hesitant to gender these things, because to me, it's a dominant way of doing things, as opposed to men are this and women are that. So one of the examples I can give is that there have been times when working in, in male dominated environments or construction environments, I was encouraged to be more aggressive with the construction workers. And I was discouraged from bringing my typical way of interacting, which was to use more humor and lightness and, you know, genuine respect that had been ingrained in me by the folks who had raised me and brought me brought me up. That's an example of being in a mentorship environment. And you're putting a position of having to disagree with that mentor, and having this desire to bring to the table, your lived experience. And oftentimes in that mentorship relationship, I haven't seen that two way interaction.

Sarah Barr 7:17
I was going to ask you, if you could speak a little bit more about the female to female mentorship relationship, and maybe how that differs from the male to female mentor ships you've experienced or what are some unique challenges there.

Kayla Dawson 7:30
There are challenges as well with female mentors, in that there can be this sense that they're actually harder on other females. And I've been somewhat perplexed by this in the past at times, but from some learning that I've done, I understand that these types of dynamics can also be seen. You know, you hear about it in the medical profession where the residency is really onerous, and medical students are staying up way too many hours in their profession. effectiveness actually decreases. But that practice is perpetuated because the previous generation went through it. And they see it as a rite of passage. They see the next generation as a reflection of them is my understanding of the situation. So, unfortunately, it just sort of perpetuates. And in my practice, I've, I've looked to actually end that. But that's been a very difficult thing to do. In one instance, I had wrongly assumed that we had reached a quality and that I should be able to look at the performance of the male colleagues around me and hold myself to that standard women, we have this expectation of ourselves that we need to be better just to have a seat at the table. And so I decided, well, equality is here, and I'm going to perform at the same level as my male colleagues. But there was attention around that from female colleagues, and female mentors, and so I think there is a perpetuation of that perfectionism and that we need to be better to have a seat at the table than that the reputation of all of us is impacted by by each woman. And so we hold ourselves and we perpetuate a perfectionism

Sarah Barr 9:20
that yeah, that that is very powerful. And I guess I've never thought about it that way before. But I think I've felt that feeling for sure. So I also liked the medical student example. I think that's very true. It's kind of like you have to go through what we've gone through. And so I guess I'm trying to clarify, what you're saying is that these these female mentors, they had to go through a lot themselves. So they're sort of pushing those same sort of expectations onto you, and it's just perpetuating those expectations being passed down from generation to generation.

Kayla Dawson 9:55
Mm hmm. And I think it's important to have some empathy at this stage today. Because as women are reaching higher heights, and greater levels of responsibility and power, they're still shouldering that pressure. And so I just want to acknowledge that it's really difficult to be that front runner and to be the person in the spotlight taking that pressure on, and to have the courage to say no more, you know, but that's such a huge societal issue that you can't just pin it on, on one person to end. So it's almost like it won't be solved until society sees women as equal. And we can show up to the table in a relaxed way, and to feel confident that we don't have to be better that we just have to be competent.

Sarah Barr 10:51
That kind of reminded me of what we were talking about before with the metrics and it's not just about how many women you have at the table. It's About how those women feel at the table and how those women are interacting.

Kayla Dawson 11:04
Yeah, it's a lot about how those women show up. And so if you've got somebody who's at the table who's in this position, and they're still anxious, that they've got to watch their back so that they're being treated any differently, they're not able to relax into that position. And you can see the folks who align with the dominant culture, you can see them relaxing. And you can see the folks who are you know, different, you can sometimes see them more stressed, more nervous. It makes it difficult when knowing that being relaxed, helps to create an environment for better problem solving. It's difficult to see certain leaders not able to feel comfortable in their role and to understand why they don't feel comfortable, but to know that if they were able to feel more comfortable, that it would be better for for the whole system. Um, and so it would be nice if everyone was comfortable.

Sarah Barr 12:04
And in that sense, I guess, feminism or equality or whatever word you want to use. It's not just for women. It's for everyone.

Kayla Dawson 12:14
Yes, like, there's so much energy burnt in the background, overcoming, you know, these feelings in these programs we've had and I can speak as being a woman. These ways we've been programmed to be peacekeepers to not be aggressive to not show anger. But the expression of emotion in the form of crying is not acceptable either. But that's the only outlet that we've been told is socially acceptable for a woman to express frustration. All of these limitations on being human, just limit everybody from communicating and connecting in a meaningful way. And so to break down all of these barriers and to allow people to be human regardless of gender and race like this is going to allow all of us to communicate more clearly. And I personally have to believe that that will reduce frustration for everybody because we'll actually be hearing each other and focusing on the problems at hand. But there are programs running in the background, like the scientific term for them being biases. I think that a lot of people think that having bias is a negative thing, but in reality, it is completely human and natural. We've all been raised in different ways. We've all come from different backgrounds. And we all have different common sense. What was common as we grew up, was different depending on so many different factors. And so I think acknowledging that bias is a completely natural part of being a human, and then being able to identify and acknowledge how biases influencing our decisions will allow us to make better decisions and communicate more clearly and effectively. One of the stats I've heard is that a, like a vast majority of project management costs are associated with miscommunication. And so knowing that behind that is biased, it begs to my mind to acknowledge these things and to be able to speak to them.

Sarah Barr 14:22
So, can you speak a little bit to how being a woman in a male dominated field has taught you more about inequality in general.

Kayla Dawson 14:31
So being a woman has given me insight into what it's like to be a minority. My personal experiences and frustrations have led me to learn more about diversity and inclusion. The way I frame that, in my own mind is that diversity if you're creating a painting, diversity is ensuring that all colors are on the page. Whereas inclusion is ensuring that all of those colors shine and ourselves. scene. And so I've found in my own experience that there, there's often initially an interest in in proving and an increasing diversity. So ensuring that you're using every color in the painting. But the next step, sometimes legs, the inclusion step, sometimes legs, where the colors are frantic, and they're not coming together into a cohesive and impactful image. And so that's where my mind has gone to is the inclusion piece and, and that's where the biases really come in. Because when you're sitting across the table from somebody, for example, I've learned that different cultures have different expectations around eye contact. So some cultures eye contact is not made, it's seen as rude to make eye contact. Whereas in, you know, North American culture, it's a sign of trust building and so to not make eye contact is perceived that something is wrong. Or there's a lack of trust there. We're seeing now more of a focus on the inclusion part. I think folks are seeing that. Soon as they bring a bunch of different people together, you can't just leave them that they need support. And there are there are folks who do research and can provide coaching support to bring people together to basically choreograph all the colors in the painting.

Sarah Barr 16:24
But you're talking about now reminded me of what you said before about, you know, you can have women at the table, that's diversity, but if they're uncomfortable, or they're not really fitting into the conventional way that things are done in their position, then they're not included, I suppose.

Kayla Dawson 16:41
Yeah. So what it's really taught me is that inclusion is a really difficult thing with deep underlying programs or biases running in the background that needs to be addressed. To create an environment where everybody at the table can speak and say Somebody has been conditioned to participate in a particular way, they may defer to others. And so creating the environment where that inclusion is there so that we understand the reasons and the mechanisms that keep let's say, women as a minority group from expressing themselves, or you know, people without the higher education from expressing themselves. Sometimes these frustrations like it's like death by a thousand cuts in a way that you're trying to express yourself. So I've had this experience myself, where I've had an idea or I've seen a problem brewing, and I've wanted to stop it, but there was no mechanism for me to be heard. And so the issue stayed quiet. And then six months later, it was an issue. And there's sort of nothing more frustrating as an engineer when you identify as a problem solver to be sitting with a solution and to have no outlet. For and to not be heard. And so I think for us to really avoid problems, we want to keep those situations from happening. We want to ensure that people have an outlet to speak and that they're heard.

Sarah Barr 18:13
I was going to say, I guess just what in your opinion would help improve the situation and invite people invite them to speak even if they don't feel like in some settings, they would have that ability? What would help solve that problem?

Kayla Dawson 18:27
What I see that could help with these situations is to first acknowledge that there is a social science behind the engineering work. There's a social science influencing the engineering work and influencing the communication that happens within the engineering work. So I think overcoming that and having a genuine respect and interest, integrate additional forms of science will be helpful. So bringing in people like coaches, for example, or I actually heard in our down, they have a philosopher on staff, as they look to do more green infrastructure and managing the water in the city, they have a philosopher on staff. And that's just somebody who kind of goes through and looks at how the communication is happening and looks at maybe where some of these gaps might be. And where some of these sticky points might be coming up better in the blind spots of people. So I believe just opening up the ability to, to talk about those blind spots and not identify them as some failing. They're not a failing. They're just a reality. And so having people that are empowered to speak of those things, and maybe even somebody who's, if they're adapt, and they understand the social science, they're actually tasked with that. In meetings that I run, I've actually started to ask the question at the end of the meeting, is there anything lingering on your mind? Is there anything that doesn't sit quite right and every We've discussed. So try to open the door and say something that's sitting right. And then to let people know you can come back later and let me know. And then a big thing of it too is when people do come with that information, to really welcome it. Another thing I've taken to doing is to communicate my own patterns that will get in the way of good decision making. For example, sometimes if I am more in a directive mode, and I'm very focused and just really wanting to get things done, I start to skim, I start going a little too fast. And so I've actually empowered some of my colleagues, typically ones that I'm supervising, and I've said, if you ever see me in this mode, if I'm really directive, please know that I have a bit of a blind spot that I can miss things and I can start pushing a little bit too fast. So I empower you to say something and so it's the giving people the early permission and encouraging them and saying you will be met positively. If you in a way, stand up to me. And that's been met with a lot of positivity from the people that I work with, because you're really just holding at the highest esteem, the right answer, perfection in a way, like if we at least strive for that perfection, that's great. But then also acknowledging we are humans at the end of the day. One of the things that I've found I struggle with and that approach is that when I express my limitations, people respond to you by saying, Oh, no, no, no, like they they see it as self deprecating, or that I'm being harsh on myself. And so they start to almost pep talk me and I don't know if this is a bit of a lingering element of what I spoke about earlier how women put a pressure on ourselves to be perfection.

Sarah Barr 22:00
Yeah, I think I think I know what you're trying to get I, I felt that too, it's like if you express that you have a limit, even if you're comfortable with that, I think just because most people aren't comfortable with with having limited writing, meeting health, and anyway, it's like they expect you to need a pep talk or a confidence. That's exactly it. And you're like saying,

Kayla Dawson 22:26
I was actually on emotionally acknowledging a reality. I wasn't expressing any emotion behind this whatsoever. I was just stating, I am a human, I have this limitation. I would like to cast light on it so that my team knows about it. Please feel free to do the same. Together, we will look out for each other. And if you have a weakness in one particular place, it's more than likely someone else on the team has a strength in that particular place. So you pair up and you watch out for each other It's such a beautiful thing when it really comes together. And I've worked on some exceptional teams and in my career, particularly straight out of university, but we really balanced each other out and looked out for each other. And we're more than the sum of our parts. And as a problem solver, like that is just the best feeling ever, where you know that you're, you're making something happen. And we were we were building industrial scale wind farms, we were making big things happen. And so it was, it was a really beautiful feeling that I'm always looking to replicate because I know what level of problem solving and effectiveness comes out of that, that integration of different people. So yeah, that's one of the hurdles I'm really seeing is that people get very uncomfortable when you state a reality about your humaneness.

Sarah Barr 23:54
I feel like I know what you're talking about. Definitely not coming from as an engineer, but just Coming from as a university student, there are a lot of perfectionists around here. And I feel like the only context when anybody hears you, admitting weakness is when you're really in need of a pep talk of some sort. People don't just go around expressing limitations. They're like, I can do it. I can. Yeah, I think it's just when you're around driven, motivated people, that's kind of a side effect.

Kayla Dawson 24:24
So it's when you're around driven motivated people. expressing a limitation or expressing a weakness makes others uncomfortable, but at a certain point, not having sort of functional relationship with that weakness and with that limitation, will turn it into into a blind spot or into an even greater weakness. And so not having the language around it to address it can actually create problems, create cost overruns, create safety concerns, you know, create schedule issues and Those are the things that we're trying to trying to limit.

Sarah Barr 25:03
So we were just talking about inclusion. And on that note, some of the limitations of inclusion, I guess, have been highlighted by the me to movement. What What is your experience of the me to movement in your workplace and how situations like that been dealt with?

Kayla Dawson 25:20
So this is a really difficult topic, but one that we have been forced to reckon with, I think, a little more in the last couple of years. From my perspective, there are two hurdles to addressing some of the inappropriate behavior that happens in society in general, the two hurdles are first victims being believed, and the other is having an appropriate response that actually influences change. Even if a victim feels that they will be believed fear of an inappropriate response to the situation or an inflated response. can actually discourage some people from coming forward. For example, I had heard a situation where a female had been involved in an incident and she raised it. But then forever, she was known as being the person who raised that and that actually can impact people wanting to hire that person. I think that does go to say something about our society and what we value and don't value. But it is it is a limitation to victims and coming forward, having their names associated with the complaint can have negative impacts on their careers. Yeah, so there's the two hurdles, but then I've also noticed that there is a genuine wariness, to even discuss the topic because it's so heated. And so the space has become really narrow for folks to ask maybe, quote unquote dumb questions or or maybe inappropriate questions in a way on the road trying to understand another perspective, there does seem to be a pressure on leaders and administrators to deal with this situation. And that can lead them to overinflating response. I mean, sort of like there's a fly in the room, let's get a flame thrower type of reaction that can negatively impact the victim. And I haven't heard much discussion around that around what is an effective response and how do we protect victims in that response? It's either full on or or not at all. And it would be nice if there were mechanisms where the victims could influence the response because sometimes the responses are actually harmful to the victim. The systems have been created primarily by men in power. So these aren't men who these typically aren't men who have been victimized in any way, shape or form. And so even the system is victimizing because it takes away your power in your control. So the first situation that happened the incident takes away your power and control and sense of autonomy and and things like that. And then you go to try to live in your reality and speak of your reality and then the system re victimizes you.

Sarah Barr 28:31
Well thank you for sharing on that. Um, I guess my last question sort of building on inclusion that we were talking about before is what do you see the role of diversity and inclusion being moving forward, especially for the engineering field, what what is still lacking and what still needs to be accomplished?

Kayla Dawson 28:50
When I look at engineering and what I understand engineers to be is problem solvers who respond to science. And one of the big things is that we have The physical, chemical, biological sciences, but we are also now really increasing our social sciences and our psychological sciences. And the reason that this is important is because climate change is both climate and change. So in the climate, we have all of the science and in the change, it's all social and change is quite difficult for humans. So if we are going to be meaningful problem solvers on the climate change problem, we have to look at all the science available to us. And the reason that diversity and inclusion is so incredibly important beyond the bringing together all of the different disciplines is that to actually solve this problem, we are going to need global governance that does not exist yet. And so that's where it's so incredibly important to bring together people from different cultures and different backgrounds. And we need to be able to understand each other understand different biases. And then also learn to make compromises and concessions, were necessary to really establish that global governance and global understanding across our entire species, which is an incredibly huge challenge, but one that personally gets me very excited to try and to try and solve.

Sarah Barr 30:26
What advice just off the top of your head would you say you have for for women entering the workforce this year, next year? Just in today's climate, it could be in any field, but I guess specifically engineering since that's sort of your discipline.

Kayla Dawson 30:43
Hmm, I would. That's a really big question. I would encourage women entering the engineering field to really think about what it means to be a problem solver and with every challenge that you meet Look to understand the factors and that can include how your own brain works and and like I've spoken of biases and really understanding what you're bringing to the table that might get in the way of finding that, that quote unquote perfect solution, that ideal solution. Having said the word perfect, don't try to be perfect. acknowledge and accept your humanity and know that, that it's part of being a great problem solvers, understanding that it is there and being able to sit with it, and also encouraged them to know that it's important to be strategic as we're making these changes, and to protect yourself and to understand that there will be people who aren't prepared to to evolve or they're in a different spot or so it's important to, to get yourself into positions where you're supported and heard and understood and you have a network of people that support you and understand as well. So

Sarah Barr 32:00
That's a great response and some great advice, I think. I think that's the last question I have for you today. So Kayla, thank you so much for being here. I've really enjoyed talking through some of these issues with you and getting to know your stance a little bit better.

Kayla Dawson 32:14
You're welcome. Thank you for having me. I've appreciated being able to share some of these things, and hopefully they will, they will empower the younger generations of female engineers to continue on and in the problem solving that needs to occur for us to move forward.

Sarah Barr 32:31
That's it for this episode. I want to thank Dave Karlsgodt and Kaia Findlay for their production assistance. If you'd like to follow the show on social media, we're on twitter @energypodcast and also on LinkedIn. Just search for campus energy and sustainability podcast. You can also visit our website at campusenergypodcast.com. If you'd like to support the show, please consider leaving a rating or review on iTunes or sending a link to a friend. As always, thanks for listening.