Women make up only 28% of people that work in STEM, and the percent of women of color in the STEM industry is even lower. This gap is caused by gender stereotypes, male-dominated work environments, fewer role models, and a confidence gap. Many of the reasons women do not have equal representation in STEM fields is because of stereotypes that are placed upon women, such as the idea that women are inherently worse at STEM subjects than men. This causes gaps in confidence, and subsequently, less women that pursue STEM careers. The impact of this is an entire point of view being shunned from the technology world. Women bring vital experiences and point of views to the table in STEM conversation, but this gap prevents their input from being heard equally.
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Mae C. Jemison
Flying into space with the Endeavor, Mae C. Jemison became the first African American woman in space.Jemison graduated from Stanford University in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering, and in 1981 graduated from Cornell with an M.D. In June of 1987, Jemison became the first African American woman to be admitted into the NASA astronaut training program. A year later, she became the first female African American astronaut as a science mission specialist. Upon the Endeavor in September of 1992, Jemison became the first African American woman in space in which she researched weightlessness and motion sickness.Since then, Jemison has received several honorary doctorates, and spoken on the importance of minority voices in space exploration.
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Florence Seibert
Seibert helped make great strides in medicine. She graduated in 1923 from Yale University with a doctoral degree in biochemistry. At Yale, she created a better method for making distilled water for patients receiving injections with distilled water. In 1932 she became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. There, she began her tuberculosis research. In her research, she created a method to purify a protein causing the tuberculin reaction. The protein she isolated was better than the original tuberculin used at that time. Eventually, her protein purification method improved and became the international standard for tuberculin tests. Her methods are still used today. She was awarded the Trudeau Medal by the National Tuberculosis Association (1938) and the Garvan Medal by the American Chemical Society (1941). Seibert also researched cancer as the director of the cancer research laboratory in a hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1990.
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Joy Buolamwini
Buolamwini is the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, which helps create more ethical and inclusive technology. She is also a graduate researcher at MIT and researches algorithmic bias in computer vision systems. Her MIT thesis exposed racial and gender bias in AI technology from companies such as Microsoft and Amazon. Buolamwini has continued to make large strides in tech equality for women by serving on the Global Tech Panel in which she advises world leaders on ways to reduce the harms of AI technology. She also launched the Safe Face Pledge, the first to prohibit lethal application of face analysis technology. Buolamwini continues to write op-eds for publications such as TIME Magazine and New York Times in which she discusses biases in AI. Her featured TED talk on biases in AI has gotten over 1 million views. She is a hero for equality in tech.
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Organization Highlight: Built by Girls
Built By Girls is an organization dedicated to offering young women the opportunity to gain insight about the professional engineering and tech world through mentorship programs, workshops, community, and online tools. Girls can participate in the WAVE mentorship program, which directly pairs her with a mentor in the engineering industry. Girls can also attend workshops on networking, network through the Built by Girls community, and utilize the blog for additional advice.
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