On Oct. 25, Anaheim Innovative Mentoring Experience (AIME) hosted its Women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Conference. Oxford Academy and Cambridge Virtual Academy students were invited to learn from guest speakers working at the University of Southern California (USC) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), through presentations and hands-on activities that empowered them to learn about STEM-related careers in industry and academia. Students earned AIME and Saturday Academy credit for attending the conference, and gained valuable knowledge about potential career routes and advice.
“The Women in STEM Conference is to celebrate women in STEM, but it is open to all students,” said World Language Department Chair and OA Robotics mentor Susan Stephan, who organized the event. “The example I always give is that, in high school, I never had a female math or science teacher. We’re just trying to open it up, so we can see how different women are working.”
The conference began with presentations from JPL engineers Sarah Elizabeth McCandless and Ruth Fragoso, who recounted their experiences on finding their career paths, their academic journeys, and what their current jobs entails as Navigation Engineers and Systems Engineering Technical Supervisors, respectively.
“What first interested me to sign up for this conference was seeing different industry professionals actually coming into the school and giving their life experiences and all that they’ve learned, and I thought that was a pretty cool opportunity,” said junior Claudia Hernandez.
In addition to an industry viewpoint, students were exposed to jobs in academia by USC professors: Dr. Shaama Sharada, associate professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science; Dr. Jennifer Moore, director of Organic Chemistry Laboratories; and Dr. Catherine Skibo, General Chemistry Laboratory Coordinator.
During all presentations, professionals emphasized the importance of resilience and self-advocacy, speaking on their own experiences as women working in STEM fields, and in some cases, the first women in their departments or programs.
“When I started, I was the only female in my PhD group. I was the first female to graduate in that group, but now I see so many more female professors and graduate students,” Dr. Moore said, “Don’t let other people tell you what you are going to do.”
Along with hearing presentations on the professors’ respective academic journeys, students also participated in an escape-room style experiment that exposed them to principles of chemistry and problem-solving through puzzles, paper chromatography, cipher-decoding, and a combustion demonstration.
“I hope [students] learned that there’s a lot of interesting careers if they’re interested in STEM, there’s lots of different opportunities and ways you can go, and hopefully they had fun doing the escape room” Dr. Skibo said, “You may not know what you’re interested in yet, so take the opportunity to learn about all different things.”
