We are grateful for the following professional women who have shared their stories about working in a variety of STEM fields. We hope their stories will inspire young women to consider pursuing STEM degrees and careers.
Neesha Rahim,
Co-Founder of Level Up Village. Watch Neesha’s video with advice for girls interested in STEM fields.
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Meet Amy Calderon Bauman
Amy is a Chemical Engineer – Safety, Security, Health & Environmental Manager at ExxonMobil.
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Meet Darcel Collins
Darcel is a Transportation Specialist at the Federal Highway Administration Office of Tribal Transportation, Washington, DC.
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Meet Audrey Crum
Meet Bonnie Lee
Meet Claire Willett
Meet Cristina Mota
Meet Lisa Winter
Visit our Women in STEM Podcast and be inspired by their work!
In this podcast, we want to inspire young women to explore and consider the possibility of choosing a path in the STEM field by listening to real-life examples of successful women in the field. Enjoy the videos!
Meet Amy Calderon Bauman, Chemical Engineer – Safety, Security, Health & Environmental Manager at ExxonMobil
What are your typical responsibilities?
My responsibilities include supporting the manufacturing of several products by providing safety, security, health & environmental systems and processes. Science, technology, engineering & math are a constant every day I go to work. I need to find solutions to issues and I draw upon my engineering education and experience. In addition, each year my company hosts an annual “Introduce a Girl to Engineering” day. We talk about STEM and host several activities to encourage students to pursue careers in engineering. It is a lot of fun!
How did you become interested in a STEM profession?
Ever since I was a young girl I always found math and science fun. I recall a science project in seventh grade where I was required to look at the environmental regulatory requirements of manufacturing across several states. At that time I knew I needed to pursue a field where I could use my love of math and science to bring much needed products into the world safely and in an environmentally responsible manner. Sustainability is a core value of mine.
What or whom were you early influences?
I come from a family of engineers. My grandfather, uncles, and brother are all engineers. My grandfather was a Type 1 diabetic and lost his eye sight due to the disease, but his engineering skills were always sharp. I remember one day when I was about 5 years old helping him take apart a refrigerator and putting it back together. Even though I was only 5, he would explain pieces and parts to me and I could be his eyes. Once the refrigerator was back together and successfully working, I felt proud of the accomplishment. I knew I wanted to have that feeling again…that sense of accomplishment. It is what motivated me to continue to be curious about how things work and eventually lead me into the field of engineering.
What advice would you offer for students to cultivate an interest in STEM and prepare themselves for a potential future career in a STEM field?
Be curious! There are so many interesting areas that involve STEM today. Get involved, meet people, ask questions and find your passion.
How can a profession in a STEM field empower young women to make a difference in the world?
Your opinion matters. High performing teams and successful companies count on inclusion and diversity to see issues and solutions through different lenses. Now is the time for young woman to get engaged and make a difference in the world. STEM fields are key to our future. I encourage you to do your part.
Meet Bonnie Lee, VP of Design and Construction
Bonnie is the VP of Design and Construction at Industrious. Learn about her profession in the interview below where she talks about her path to working in a STEM field.
What are your typical responsibilities?
In the design and construction industry, there is a fine balance of building beautiful awe-inspiring spaces and buildings that need to be structurally sound and safe. In my role, I have a design team that is always innovating and pushing the boundaries of what a typical office looks like. They rely on mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and architects to guide how the
proper air conditioning ductwork can fit, how we get power safely to all offices, and how this will all be drafted into drawings to convey the complete vision via blueprints to a builder. The construction team ensures that the design being provided is truly feasible to fit in the schedule and budget provided. They are relied on heavily to evaluate how each piece of duct, electrical conduit, concrete pour will be scheduled to make sure nothing is missed and done in the most efficient way.
How did you become interested in a STEM profession?
When I was in high school, I took a drafting class because I enjoyed drawing and used to spend hours in the “Architectural Digest” magazines dreaming up how I would design my own house. I thought I wanted to be an architect. As I progressed through high school and then into college, I realized my math and science skills surpassed my arts and creativity skills; plus I loved to solve puzzles! I realized engineering came more natural to me, so I got a degree in Architectural Engineering. (A perfect blend of both my passion and my skills.) In college, I did a lot of summer internships, and it truly solidified my passion to be out at construction sites, to be able to see first-hand how designs were transforming into tangible structures that would be adorned for years.
What or whom were you early influences?
When I interned in college, I was working with a plumbing foreman who made me realize that no matter where you came from, you can do whatever you put your mind to. She was one of the first female construction workers I had encountered, and she showed me that gender didn’t matter, and if you have the courage and wit, anyone can be unstoppable!
What advice would you offer for students to cultivate an interest in STEM and prepare themselves for a potential future career in a STEM field?
Take the classes that interest you, not just what classes your friends are taking or the ones with preferred teachers. Take a leap on your passion and see where you land; you won’t know until you try! There are so many options out there in engineering; when I was younger I didn’t know that my job even existed and that there was even a major in school geared towards construction engineering. I got lucky by just following were my interests were.
How can a profession in a STEM field empower young women to make a difference in the world?
We are moving into industries where new perspectives and innovations are needed, and as we continue to challenge each of these industries into further embracing the female voice. Each of these industries will become more innovative and progressive further pushing the speed at which these industries try new things and test something they wouldn’t have before! In my industry, who knows…construction efficiency increases by way of 3D virtual design, building with only eco-friendly materials to reduce carbon emissions, or even significantly reduced construction costs which then reduce global cost of living expenses?
Meet Lisa Winter, Engineering Project Manager
What are your typical responsibilities?
As Engineering Project Manager I mainly deal with the timeline for our hardware production. I use my experience as a roboticist to create time estimates for each phase, and overall schedule, of our project. I work with suppliers to make sure that all of our parts arrive at the manufacturer on-time, and that each stage of production happens correctly and on-time. I also work with our local team to prioritize weekly tasks.
How did you become interested in a STEM profession?
STEM found me. I have been building robots for Robot Wars and BattleBots since I was 10 years old. It was always a fun hobby; I never thought about it turning into a career. Over time I found out that robotics was much more than a hobby and could lead to a lot of jobs. Planning and scheduling for BattleBots gave me a lot of the experience needed to become a Project Manager.
What or whom were you early influences?
My family influenced and encouraged me as a child. I was also inspired by cool shows like Star Trek, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Ren and Stimpy, and anything mechanical like bikes, kitchen mixers, scroll saws, and hot glue-guns.
What advice would you offer for students to cultivate an interest in STEM and prepare themselves for a potential future career in a STEM field?
Participate in all the fun nerdy sciency projects in school. Making volcanoes, Rube Goldberg machines, terrariums, etc. is all SO MUCH FUN! Make sure to pay attention to what activities are the most fun for you and continue to do them, explore, teach.
How can a profession in a STEM field empower young women to make a difference in the world?
It is important that professions in the STEM field gather opinions from ALL people. For example, let’s say a team of male engineers designs a women’s restroom. There is a high likelihood that there will be issues with the final design because they are not women and don’t share the same experiences we go through. Everyone sees the world differently and has different opinions/knowledge to offer. Having a diverse team makes it possible to create something that will suit a more global market (and all genders).
Meet Cristina Mota, Computational Linguist and Founder of Kinderbots
What are your typical responsibilities?
As a computational linguist, I use coding to analyze and model language and find and describe patterns of language use. This means I use code to count and to identify special sequences of words in textual data, calculate statistics over those sequences, classify those words, and organize information. I also develop (train and test) machine learning systems that do natural language processing. As the founder and also program coordinator of Kinderbots, I prepare the coding classes by trying different missions with the robots to see what could be more engaging and to convey a certain computer science concept.
How did you become interested in a STEM profession?
As a child I was always fascinated with math, science, experimenting, and discovering new things. I always wanted to become a scientist or an inventor. I also thought of being an archeologist. Once I also received a chemistry kit and that was fascinating to me! There were microscopes in the house too.
What or whom were you early influences?
Marie Curie and Einstein are definitely on the top of the list, but I also remember reading about Florence Nightingale. I used to read biographies about great minds, many of them women in science. My mother was also a great inspiration because she was always fixing something around the house. If she had been given the chance, I think she would have been an engineer or inventor. My paternal grandfather was a self-taught electrical wiz who made a radio out of only he knows what.
What advice would you offer for students to cultivate an interest in STEM and prepare themselves for a potential future career in a STEM field?
Be curious. Be a learner. Read. Read a lot. Try and fail. Try again. Connect with other people who also have an interest in STEM activities and start a project/club together. Find a mentor.
How can a profession in a STEM field empower young women to make a difference in the world?
STEM fields have historically attracted more young men. Just by being a young woman working in a STEM field, that sets a role model for other women to pursue a career in a STEM field. That by itself makes a big difference in the world. Moreover, if young women have careers in STEM fields, that will allow them, for instance, to participate in policy making in education, health, and science & research changing the future of coming generations.
Meet Claire Willett, Data Scientist
Claire is a Data Scientist at Conde Nast, where they publish magazines like Wired, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. Learn about her profession in the interview below where she talks about publishing, backend coding, and how STEAM led her to her work today.
What is a data scientist?
I mainly try to make stories out of data. The “how” varies, but typically involves running analyses on user and content data and translating salient points with words and pictures.
How did you decide to be a Data Scientist?
I’d always wanted to work in magazines, actually — either as an editor or a contributor. When I graduated, it was a bit of a dark time for the print world, and the first job I found was in the marketing department of a tech company. Right away, I was fascinated by the strange neon numbers and dark screens on the computers surrounding me — much more so than by what was on my own desktop, I should say. I was lucky in that my coworkers didn’t mind teaching me the bolts of what they were working on, and doubly lucky that there was no one analyzing the impacts of our marketing efforts, enabling me to take that responsibility on, and I guess very lucky when my then boss allowed me to take a data science course; this enabled me to seek out jobs that were more and more about data and less about marketing, until I arrived at my current position, when words are finally starting to hold a bit more sway.
What or whom were you early influences?
I was drawn to plucky writers who forged their own paths, fictional or otherwise — Jo March and Laura Ingalls Wilder were particular favorites. I also felt inspired by pretty much every subject of teen movie self-improvement montages, with an especial shout out to Cher Horowitz.
What advice would you offer for students to cultivate an interest in STEM and prepare themselves for a potential future career in a STEM field?
Coding is a nice thing to keep in your back pocket, but it likely won’t resonate unless you find a subject you care about. Maybe you’re passionate about 16th century marriage plots — you could use a crawling script to extract all marriage plots from Gutenberg, run sentiment and text analysis on them, and visualize your findings in an interactive, searchable app. Or maybe you’re colorblind and fashion-obsessed — you could create an app that translates the colors in the fashion spreads you view online into ones your eyes can understand, etc., etc. I would also recommend learning both development and analysis, as if one doesn’t sing to you, the other may.
How can a profession in a STEM field empower young women to make a difference in the world?
I don’t think STEM fields have an automatic differentiating advantage, but the powerful thing about engineering, at any rate, is the scale/reach of what you’re able to analyze and put out into the world. Basically, if you have an idea and the ability to build and test that idea yourself, you have advantages of time, control, and prediction. Of course, you still need to come up with the idea in the first place, and for that, I really think a strong language arts background will come in handy!
Meet Darcel Collins, A Transportation Specialist at Federal Highway Administration Office of Tribal Transportation – Washington, DC.
What are your typical responsibilities?
Provide technical assistance, stewardship, and oversight for transportation funds and projects for tribal nations. This assistance includes working with the tribes on planning, design, and constructing road and bridge projects.
How did you become interested in a STEM profession?
As a child, I was always fascinated with unique architecture structures and loved math.
What or whom were you early influences?
My middle and high school math teachers.
What advice would you offer for students to cultivate an interest in STEM and prepare themselves for a potential future career in a STEM field?
When considering a career, think about what will provide you with multitude opportunities to work where ever you want in the world, with stability, and an ability to advance and to provide financial security. A STEM career is a great way to go. Take your math and science classes seriously, think of the real-life applications, and learn how you can make an impact on the world by choosing STEM.
How can a profession in a STEM field empower young women to make a difference in the world?
Working in civil engineering or any STEM profession, a career that not many women choose, in and of itself is empowering. STEM careers spur innovation, leadership, and daily change with what we do and how we do it. This impacts the world!
Is there anything else you would like to share?
This career has afforded me the opportunity to visit almost every state in the United States and to see places a little girl from the small town of Burlington, New Jersey could not even begin to image. If I can do it, I know you can too.
Meet Audrey Crum, Jr Project Manager of tech at Tough Mudder
What are your typical responsibilities?
At Tough Mudder, my primary responsibility is to manage the workflow of tasks flowing into the Technology Team. I work with developers and stakeholders to turn ideas into fully developed digital products. I also help to aggregate and analyze data reports for other teams, which they use to better understand our customers and markets.
How did you become interested in a STEM profession?
I began working in print publishing, and fell in love with the innovation and opportunities in their digital team. They were always working on the most interesting and game-changing products.
What or whom were you early influences?
My first manager on the digital publishing team – she was such a badass, and pushed me into the role I have now. Having a female manager or role model in a technical field is hugely important.
What advice would you offer for students to cultivate an interest in STEM and prepare themselves for a potential future career in a STEM field?
Don’t be afraid to speak up if you think you’re right. Believe in your own abilities and never give up
How can a profession in a STEM field empower young women to make a difference in the world?
For every woman that enters STEM, we chip away at the idea that certain career paths can only, or should only, be pursued by men.
Today is the day!
Be part of the change. Help us bridge the gender gap in STEM fields by providing equipment and training for young women and their teachers around the world.
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Provide training and equipment in STEM-robotics for young women and their teachers in underserved communities around the world, together with academic and social-emotional support, so that aspiring engineers can pursue higher education and a STEM career.
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