Academic makerspaces provide engineering students with the means to prototype, experiment, and collaborate, allowing students to gain experience with common engineering tasks. Participation in these spaces can help students to feel connected to the engineering profession and to build their engineering identity, which can impact recruitment, retention, and persistence. However, makerspaces do not always attract and retain diverse students, so students may benefit unequally from participation in these spaces. In this study, a makerspace micro-credentialing program, where students earn digital badges as they master making skills such as digital design and 3D printing, will be explored as a strategy to promote equitable student engagement in makerspaces. Digital badges make student competencies visible, both to students who earn the credential and to their peers and instructors, helping students gain recognition of their skills and helping them feel more secure in their identity as engineers. This study will explore how digital badging in makerspaces impacts identity development in engineering students, exploring the potential of makerspaces to act as a complementary pathway for students to become engineers. Additionally, new strategies to promote equitable makerspace involvement resulting from this study will help engineering educators support the development of an innovative and inclusive engineering workforce. This project will evaluate digital badging in makerspaces as a pedagogical strategy to support professional formation through the development of engineering identity and belongingness. This research seeks to answer two critical research questions: How do digital badges impact the development of students? sense of belonging in engineering and engineering identity?; and How do digital badges influence students? participation in makerspaces? To explore these questions, first-year students in an engineering design course will earn digital badges in a university makerspace. The study uses a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative survey measures of students? engineering identity and sense of belonging and inductive coding of student interviews to identify themes in students? experience with the makerspace and digital badging activities. The study will provide: 1) Evaluation of the impact of digital badges on the types and frequency of activities students undertake in makerspaces; 2) Increased knowledge of student professional formation by exploring how credentialing in a makerspace supports student identity formation for diverse populations; 3) Exploration of how students? perceptions of badge relevance affect their engagement with badging activities and their resulting professional formation; and 4) Deeper understanding of engineering identity development in first-year engineering courses at a Hispanic-serving institution. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.