How do black men succeed in IT careers?

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professions are some of the most lucrative and sought-after careers in the U.S., but black men are largely absent from those fields.  Lynette (Kvasny) Yarger, an associate professor at Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), is investigating the social, cultural and economic factors that cause some black men to shy away from information technology (IT) careers and others to succeed in them. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professions are some of the most lucrative and sought-after careers in the U.S., but black men are largely absent from those fields. Lynette (Kvasny) Yarger , an associate professor at Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), is investigating the social, cultural and economic factors that cause some black men to shy away from information technology (IT) careers and others to succeed in them. "The objective of the study is to look at [black men's] career pathways," Kvasny said. "How do they get to the point where they choose IT as a career?" Kvasny, along with Eileen Trauth , a professor of IST, and K.D. Joshi and P. Unnikrishnan, faculty members at Washington State University, co-wrote the paper, "How Do Black Men Succeed in IT Careers? The Effects of Capital." While most of the academic literature on black men focus on academic failures and poverty, according to the authors, their work "focuses on the positive by profiling black men who have successfully entered IT majors." The project consists of a series of studies that are investigating the questions of black men's success in IT.