Media contact: Yvonne Taunton
UAB business honors student Dipal Patel has been accepted to present her research about the demographics of Fortune 500 companies. Dipal Patel, a University of Alabama at Birmingham business honors student, has been accepted to present her research on the demographics of Fortune 500 companies to the 2021 National Conference on Undergraduate Research.
Patel, an undergraduate student in the Collat School of Business, has spent two years researching the correlation between female and minority representation in executive positions at highly regarded American businesses. She has collected a wide variety of demographic data, from company revenue to number of employees.
Her research shows that only 25 percent of executive level positions — chief executive officers, chief financial officers, chief information officers, etc. — were held by women and only 5 percent of those positions were held by people of color.
Initially, Patel presented her findings at the 2020 UAB Service Learning and Undergraduate Research Expo. When she did not receive recognition from the judges, she used this as an opportunity to revise and strengthen her data, with help from Collat finance professor Stephanie Yates, Ph.D. She then sent an abstract to the 2021 NCUR, where she was accepted to present her research.
The NCUR, set to take place April 12-14, hosts 3,500-4,000 undergraduate students from around the world, each presenting research through performance or visual art, posters, or oral presentations.