At Madhu Lal-Nag’s high school in India, students were required by the 10th grade to declare whether they would major in science and math or in the humanities. After choosing the former, “there was no turning back,” says Lal-Nag. “The wheels were set in motion.” She was largely inspired by her parents, both of […]
As a female engineer, no rx no rx I have confronted low self-confidence, self-doubt, and even the feeling that I didn’t truly belong or deserve my success because I was different from most of the people around me. Ruth Charney, online president-elect of the Association of Women in Mathematics and professor at Brandeis University, […]
We previously discussed the issues surrounding attrition of women in STEM. If you are one of those focused, goal-oriented, tenacious women who figure out how to have it all and stay in their STEM field, chances are you are going to rise through the ranks and find yourself in a supervisory capacity at some point. […]
This is the third in a series of posts designed to shine the spotlight on one segment of the STEM career path. We have already discussed Science and Technology. Today our focus is on Engineering. When we think of engineers, we often limit our understanding to just those major and most common categories of engineers: […]
Susan Fitzpatrick, president of the Association for Women in Science and vice president of the James S. McDonnell Foundation, has observed that in the earliest stages of a woman’s STEM career, situations tend to be highly individual. “As long as you get into a good lab and they give you two feet of bench space,” […]
In an earlier post I shared a list of programs that girls can get involved in to support their pursuits in STEM. Another powerful strategy to use is finding, keeping and relying on a mentor to guide you on your path. At an early age, if we feel like we aren’t getting the advice and […]
In our culture, there is a prevailing notion that boys are somehow inherently better at math than girls are. This dangerous assumption is at the core of the gender imbalance that exists in fields of study and work involving math, such as engineering. When most people, including educators, have a subconscious idea that math is […]
As females, we faced tough challenges in deciding to enter a STEM discipline, confronted gender imbalance in our studies, and overcame bias in order to land a job in our chosen field. Even after we establish ourselves in our careers, we continue to encounter career-ending traps. After overcoming so much to come this far, why […]
In today’s STEM spotlight, we will hear from Tracy Drain on how to cultivate respect in your position and gain confidence along the way. Now a systems engineer with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Tracy Drain was a recent college graduate and brand-new engineer in 2000. Having been hired to work in a department with […]
This is the second in a series of posts designed to shine a bright spotlight on one segment of the STEM career path. We have already discussed Science. Today our focus is on Technology. You have such a wide variety of jobs in technology to choose from that it can seem somewhat confusing or […]
