Kim Jones | Engineers Canada

Kim Jones, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University, wants to make engineering a career where everyone feels welcomed, supported, and included.

A sought-after speaker and Engineers Canada 30 by 30 Champion, Jones was motivated by great role models but experienced and observed many barriers for women in engineering. She wants to prevent future generations from facing the same barriers. To that end, she mentors women and nonbinary youth and researches ways to overcome inequities in engineering. So far, her efforts have been highly successful: The proportion of women in McMaster’s first-year engineering class increased from 24 percent in 2017 to more than 46 percent in 2025. “Engineering as a profession benefits hugely when it has a diversity of participants,” Jones says.

At McMaster, Jones created a course called Inclusion in the Engineering Workplace that teaches students to identify systemic inequities and provides tools to address those issues in work environments. She also made research-driven changes to the way students complete group work. There are no solo women on teams, and each team member must rotate between technical (i.e., coding) and non-technical (i.e., taking minutes) roles. Students also receive instruction on productive and inclusive teamwork. The result was an immediate tenfold increase in the number of women choosing to pursue engineering disciplines that highlight coding.

Since 2018, Jones has chaired the Ontario Network of Women in Engineering (ONWiE). Under her leadership, ONWiE has expanded its outreach and engagement activities to reach nearly 30,000 youth annually, including piloting a new Go PHYS Girl workshop to complement established Go ENG Girl and Go CODE Girl programs for girls and nonbinary youth. The number of women enrolled in Ontario’s undergraduate engineering programs more than doubled between 2017 and 2023.

Jones says such progress is incredibly heartening, especially given the current backlash against diversity and inclusion efforts. But she has no intention of backing down.

“Any time you make change, there is resistance. We have to keep our foot on the accelerator.”