March is Expanding Girls’ Horizons in Science and Engineering Month! That’s a mouthful! It’s the 21st century, so why are we still talking about women in science? While women have made huge advancements in biological and medical fields, even making up the majority in some of these fields, women are still a significant minority in engineering, computer, physical sciences, and mathematics. The development of talent in STEM fields is crucial for our country’s global leadership. When an open and diverse scientific community is fostered, you can draw from a variety of unique viewpoints or experiences. So why is it important for women to be encouraged to pursue careers in STEM fields? Women in STEM fields make 33% more money than women in non-stem fields. We all know money can’t buy happiness, but most of us would at least like the opportunity to prove that wrong, right? Women also experience a smaller wage gap relative to men in STEM fields. Not only that, women in STEM fields often get a lot of satisfaction from being involved in exciting areas of discovery, innovation, technological, and medical advances. The more opportunities for women in these fields, the more opportunities we have for economic success and equality. In honor of this month, I have interviewed some of my favorite ladies in many areas of STEM fields. I am fortunate to call these talented, successful women my friends. Enjoy reading about their careers and experiences! Lauren E. Ayers, MLS (ASCP) Medical Laboratory Scientist, Microbiology Technologist Sacred Heart Hospital I work as a Medical Laboratory Scientist within the Microbiology/Molecular Biology Department at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, Florida. My work consists of working alongside physicians and nurses to care for patients with infectious disease. I use methods such as culture identification/sensitivities, molecular testing, and antigen/antibody testing to diagnose disease causing organisms (bacteria, viruses, and parasites). My career requires that I work unusual hours, which can dampen one's social life. I have worked several different shifts including days, evenings, nights, and rotating shifts working eight days on for ten hours and having six days off. Working unusual hours in a high stress environment can really take a toll on you emotionally and physically, so you really need to love your career to endure the pressure. Is this career messy? Yes! Does this career involve testing body fluids, tissue, urine, feces, and blood? Yes! Is this career for a weak stomached individual? No! But the payoff, yes, the payoff is coming home knowing you helped diagnose and treat someone's mother, father, sibling, or other family member. Every night I come home and I sleep soundly knowing I made a difference in a patient's life. I have always loved science, especially biology. When I started college I wanted to be a Pediatric Oncologist. I loved children, and I wanted nothing more than to help treat sick children. It was not long before I began to realize not all patients could be healed. I had to accept that even though medical advances have come far, patients still pass away despite all measures taken. I knew I was not ready to accept that, so I continued college looking for the right profession. I then took a general microbiology course and fell in love with micro! When I am peering through a microscope, I feel like I'm looking into another world. I expressed my interest to my professor, and he allowed me to work in his research lab. The grad students that were there introduced me to the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) chapter at the college. The ASM chapter brought several guest speakers to the meetings to discuss multiple careers in the microbiology field. I knew a career in Clinical Microbiology was what I wanted to pursue, so I finished my degree in Biology and finished a secondary degree in Clinical Laboratory Sciences (CLS). The CLS program I attended at the University of West Florida was very educational; not only did I learn Microbiology, but I also learned Hematology, Clinical Chemistry, and Immunohematology. At the end of the program, a seven month internship was required where I gained valuable work experience; this helped me to receive my microbiology position right out of college. I have been very fortunate that I have not experienced much gender discrimination. I work with more women than men in my field. The only time I really feel partiality is when hospital staff (including physicians, nurses, and techs) need advice and immediately skip over me or other female coworkers if they see a man in the room. What I have learned and recommend to others is to be assertive, yet stay professional. Women have the capability to do anything a man can do! If a woman has a passion for any of these fields they should go for it. Lead as an example to others! Younger girls must see women advance and excel in these fields, so they will follow in our footsteps. I also believe women should not hide away from these fields because they are scared of discrimination; prove others wrong and slowly the bias will fade. The work I do is hard and can be stressful, but the satisfaction of being part of a team that saves peoples' lives outweighs all the negatives. When starting college, find advisors specific to Microbiology. Show interest in school and seek advice/guidance from your professors and upperclassman. Get involved with available academic clubs. Always remember to follow your dreams, you only have one life, so live it to its fullest! Take advantage of all the opportunities women have now to broaden their education. Lastly, if there is a will there is a way, never give up! Stephanie Carle, DVM Staff Veterinarian at Abilene Zoo There really isn’t a normal day for me. I work with about 1000 animals. Typically I am Monday through Friday, but as the only vet at my zoo, I am on call 24-7. It is rare to get called in at night, but it does happen on occasion. Most weekends I am called in at least once. On a day to day basis, I am performing routine preventative health exams on various animals, administering medication, performing pre-shipment testing on animals that are supposed to ship to other zoos, doing paperwork (the worst part of the job), managing quarantine animals (new animals to the zoo that go through a 30 day quarantine behind the scenes), taking care of injured birds in our rehab department, managing diets of all 1000 animals, examining sick animals, etc. etc. etc. Currently I have stayed busy caring for a baby giraffe. He was born in December at another zoo and was unable to stand. That zoo nursed him back to health, but by then the mother did not have milk and was already out on the large amounts of acreage at that facility. Since they could not keep this baby near the adult giraffes and continue to bottle feed him, that zoo decided it would be better if this animal came to our zoo where he can be kept in a warm barn and introduced to a herd. Although he is adorable, we want him to learn to be a giraffe, not a human. He has had his ups and downs but is doing great and growing like crazy! Since I could talk, I was going to be a vet. I grew up on a farm where my parents indulged my interest in animals. We had cows, horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, ducks, pigs, etc. I was active in 4-H as well. When I was in high school, I learned about Sea World Camp and went twice; that is when I decided I wanted to be a zoo vet. I volunteered with a small animal clinic in undergrad and spent my summers in undergrad and vet school working at a marine park with the vet. During vet school I externed at that same marine park, the St. Louis Zoo and the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program. Once I graduated, I completed a one year small animal medicine and surgery rotating internship and then spent two years as the zoo veterinarian intern at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo. I am now the staff veterinarian at the Abilene Zoo. I have been fortunate that I have not been faced with much sexism in my career. The majority of new vets are women. I do know that in the zoo world, it is rare for women to have families. Most women zoo vets are not married and have no children. However, it seems that most men are at least married. Perhaps it has always been acceptable for the man to work the long hours with on-call shifts and still have families but not so much for women. I have personally seen women in this field berate other women for having families and using their kids as an excuse not to be on call or be unable to come in when needed. That is unacceptable but understandable. It is hard to have kids and be on call 24-7 but that is the career, I guess. I do remember visiting colleges my senior year of high school and a man at a Florida university stating, “Hmmm, Midwestern blonde girl wants to major in marine biology, typical.” I told him no, I was going to be a marine mammal vet. His attitude towards me was critical. He did not take me seriously and seemed to know that I would not make it. My interests broadened to all zoo animals, not just marine, but I did make it and man, I wish I could find that man and stick it to him! Women are just as important as men to the STEM fields. There should be no contest between the two sexes. When a woman can do a traditionally man’s job just as easily as a man can do a traditionally woman’s job, this world will be a better place. I want women to pursue STEM fields so that we can have equality between the sexes in this field. {Advice to young women} If you work hard and never give up, you can achieve anything. So many times in my education I was told that my career path was impossible, no one becomes zoo vets! It is true that this is unique field and there are few jobs, but I have always been determined that I would be nothing else and no one could stop me! Katie Essary BS in ChemE from University of Kansas Reservoir Engineer at Chevron One of my favorite parts of my job is the fact that I don’t do the same thing two days in a row! The needs of the business are constantly changing, and I’m expected to adapt. In my current role, I usually come into the office and work on a few of my ongoing projects, such as estimating the remaining recoverable oil for some of our assets or running economics on various development scenarios. Often times, those projects will be set aside so that I can work on whatever pressing issue my team is faced with that week. It’s fast-paced, problem solving and there’s always something exciting to work on! My love of math, physics, and chemistry led me to pursue a career in engineering. It also helped that I was exposed to engineering at an early age, visiting bridges and other structures my dad designed as a civil engineer. He even drove us by his waste water treatment plants, but I’ll spare you the details on that! I ended up following my older brother to KU, copying his major in chemical engineering as any annoying little sister would do. During college, I completed several chemical engineering internships for Kimberly-Clark, making Kleenex and Viva towels. I then took a leap and agreed to spend my last summer in college working for Chevron as a “petroleum engineer.” After having no classes in the subject, I had no idea if I would enjoy the position, but I couldn’t turn down a summer in sunny California! Once there, I quickly realized that petroleum engineering as a profession was very exciting and state-of-the-art yet with a long, fascinating history dating back to the 1800’s. There are always new problems to solve, and the innovation never stops! That internship led to a full-time position with the company, with my next seven years and six job positions spent in Bakersfield, California, and Houston, Texas. Honestly, I’ve never felt that my gender has held me back in any way. My company embraces diversity and even has a “Women’s Network” with inspirational talks, resources and networking events. Yes, there are fewer women in engineering careers, but I feel as though I’ve always been treated equally and had the support that I needed to be successful. My husband and I are expecting a son in July, so I’ve just recently looked into the life of a working mom at Chevron. They have private rooms for breastfeeding, daycare options, family leave and even part-time work hours to ensure that moms (and dads!) can continue to pursue a career while making a priority of taking care of our little ones! Even though the company is aware of my pregnancy, they’ve still allowed for me to advance my career, putting me into increasingly challenging roles. I look forward to the day when all women get to experience an even playing field, as I do. In order to get there, I think more employers need to adopt similar practices for embracing diversity and ensuring opportunities are given to all employees, regardless of gender, race, etc. There is absolutely no reason why there should be such a dichotomy of % males vs % females in STEM fields. In any field, having a diversity of perspective is critical to advance technologies and I believe that an increase in female practitioners will do just that! If I ever have a daughter, I hope to be a role model for her, telling her she can do whatever she puts her mind to, even if it’s historically been a “man’s job.” {Advice to young women} Find whatever your passion is, and pursue that. If it happens to be a male-dominated field, so be it! Go in there and show them that you’ve got what it takes! Rachel Scharer Fisheries Biologist for Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission My job has variety. Some days I am in the field setting nets, driving a boat, handling fish, and tagging endangered smalltooth sawfish. Other days I am in the laboratory managing data, writing manuscripts and reports, or talking with the public about sawfish, including coordinating events such as retrieval of occasional sawfish carcasses to study. I grew up on the water, and I became interested in marine biology after dissecting sharks during a high school marine biology class. I started volunteering with several marine facilities in my hometown and really enjoyed it. After high school, I attended the University of West Florida for my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. While working on my master’s degree, I attended professional fisheries meetings and did a lot of networking that would help me in the future. After I graduated, I got a job in fisheries management, which was important work, but my heart wasn’t in it. Later, I was able to transfer to a research position because of connections that I had made while working on my master’s degree. Personally, one of the biggest challenges I have faced as a woman is being underestimated. Most of the time it’s based on appearance (too delicate, too small, etc.), or just being a woman. I also know fisheries observers that have run into problems where captains didn’t want women on their boats because it was bad luck. In my opinion, the best thing you can do in most of these situations is prove them wrong by doing the things that you are capable of doing. I think a lot of these biases will go away with time, but we should also lead by example and show the next generation that women are perfectly capable scientists. I belong to an organization called the Gills Club (http://www.gillsclub.org/), which teaches young girls about sharks. They feature women who are studying sharks and rays all over the world. It’s amazing to see what kind of research these women are doing and the positive response we get from our peers and from the girls! Finally, I think it’s also important to encourage our peers and maintain a positive attitude. Like many fields, marine biology can be really competitive, but it’s important to realize that there can be enough success to go around for everyone and we should all be encouraging one another and lifting each other up as we do our jobs. It’s important that women/girls know that they can pursue any field they are interested in. Pursuing a career in any STEM field should be no different than pursuing a degree in any other field. Women should not be intimidated by the typical stereotypes that say women should do this and men should do that. I think this is slowly changing, we are starting to see all kinds of things change for women. In fact, in a lot of classes for my major the women outnumbered the men! Life is short, do something that you love and don’t let anyone tell you that it’s impossible. Sure there are plenty of people that don’t end up pursuing jobs in the field they went to school for, but the people that really have a passion for something always make it. Volunteer, intern, work hard and make as many connections as you can; you never know when or where the perfect job is going to open up! A career in this field may not be easy and you definitely won’t get rich, but if you are doing something that gets you really excited to wake up every day, then it will absolutely be worth it. Cortney R. Strodtman-Pettit, Pharm. D. MTS Pharmacist-in-Charge at Sam's Health Mart in Fayette I work everyday from 8 A.M. to 6 P.M. in our local community pharmacy. I do what most people would expect of a pharmacist, I check and make sure all the pills in the bottle are correct. What people don't realize I do is review patients medication profiles as well as disease states, to make sure that there are no drug interactions or interactions with their diseases that could harm the person. I also answer any question a patient may have on their prescriptions, over-the-counter medications, and even their disease states. Most patients are more comfortable with speaking with their pharmacist than they are their physicians, I have found. I guess this is because they get to see me each month when they come into the pharmacy, and only see their doctors once each year. I also spend my day answering questions from physicians all over the area. They call me with questions about dosing, suggestions that can save patients money, and as a resource to bounce ideas off of. I am lucky that I get the opportunity to make a difference in dozens of people's lives each day. I always knew that I wanted to be in a field where I was able to support myself and a family. I ended up in pharmacy because my great grandmother passed away due to drug interactions that caused her organs to fail. She was using multiple doctors and multiple pharmacies. We didn't realize how dangerous that could be. I wanted to make sure that that did not happen to anybody else. I worked very hard, went to school for six years graduating with a Doctor of Pharmacy, passed a national and two state board exams, and landed my first job in California. After working there for three years, I decided it was time to come home. That is when I became the pharmacist-in-charge of my hometown pharmacy. Luckily for me, I have not struggled with many obstacles because of being a woman. This could be because I was born and raised in Fayette, so people were used to seeing me. I know that some women meet resistance, especially when they work in the hospitals. There are some patients out there that do not believe that women should be in the healthcare field unless they are a nurse. I believe that with time this will fade away, as it already seems to be. The only way that we will totally be rid of this double standard is to continue to put competent and professional women into the work field. Women can do anything that men can do. I firmly believe that. Women can be doctors, engineers, astronauts, and pharmacists! On the same token men can be teachers, nurses, and hairstylists. Why should someone’s gender dictate what they do for a living? Equality is so important, especially when it comes to careers. I would tell them {young women interested in pursuing a career in my field} to do their research. Don't go into pharmacy because you think you're going to make a lot of money. Don't go into any career for the money. Do something that you love and love whatever you do. Be passionate about it. I've had many people tell me what a wonderful pharmacist I am. It isn't because I make a lot of money, it is because I genuinely care about what happens to each person that walks in the door of my pharmacy. If you can't love what you do, you shouldn't be doing it. I would also caution them that becoming a pharmacist is hard work. When you choose an advanced degree, understand it isn't given to you, it is earned. One day though you'll look back and you won't regret it, you will be proud. You will make it through, and you will be stronger for it. Ty Tran IT Systems Analyst USAA As an IT Systems Analyst, I work with business managers and application product owners to understand their business requirements and objectives. Then I work with IT so that they understand what the system should do and what users will expect. Essentially, I translate the business requirements into system requirements. I help guide the IT team with design specifications and direction, work to help remove impediments, make sure the business, IT, and quality assurance teams are on track with development and project progress. I work in an agile software development framework where software development and business requirements are flexible and iterative, changing based on feedback. It's very fast paced. I work with multiple workstreams in my project team area to understand, learn, and share our project experiences on how we can adapt or change our everyday ceremonies to help our teams work easier, faster, and more efficient. I didn't know what I wanted to do after high school. I had vague ideas about medical school because my parents wanted me to be in a medical profession. I was frankly terrified that I wouldn't find a career that fit me and that I could love. I went to college and tried many majors - chemical engineering, biology, teacher education, and library science. I missed my masters deadline for information library science and decided to take a couple of computer science classes. I didn't like "programming" in high school, and I also hated math. I always viewed myself as an introverted person, very artsy and bookish. But I thought I could knock out some prerequisites by taking this college introductory level programming class - visual basic. I became very engaged, challenged, and thrilled by the class. Never in a million years would I have thought I would actually love programming! I found an artist outlet with programming. I could visualize how I wanted to design the program. I changed my major and got a Bachelors in Computer Science. After working in the business as a programmer for many years, I didn't feel the same thrill and engagement and moved to different areas of the business within my company. As a programmer, I could work independently but almost in an isolated environment, which fit with my introverted personality. But I felt like I needed to grow myself in another direction, away from being a developer but still remain in IT. As I worked on many projects, I made a lot of contacts and another analyst pointed out that I would make a great analyst since I had a strong background in technology and could redirect my energy into helping IT understand business requirements and helping the business with their objectives. The position requires strong verbal and written communication skills, challenging me to become more of an extrovert, understanding business relationships, and working on my soft skills. This was exactly what I was looking for, and I then transitioned into the position I have now. When I decided I wanted to be an IT Systems Analyst, I found that my managers did not know how to help me transition from a software developer to an IT systems analyst. They began to plan a career path for me by giving me technical lead positions or project management duties, which they thought were stepping stones into an analyst position. My managers, however, did not understand what analysts do and after talking with other analysts, I realized I had to find a manager who was willing to put me on a project as an analyst on a trial basis and not a developer. I networked with other analysts to find projects and from there, I proved I could do the work and was hired full time into the position. I found that I could not depend on my managers to find that opportunity for me but that I had to take the initiative to find it for myself and plan my own career. Like Xena Warrior Princess, I am empowered by taking charge and making my own destiny! I grew up in an Asian culture where my parents discouraged me from engineering because it wasn't a "female" career and pushed me to follow a medical career path. As immigrants in America, they worked hard in minimum wage jobs so that their children would be able to graduate high school, go to college, and have meaningful careers. I realized in my career journey that I wasn't motivated to be in a STEM field to show my parents how wrong they were about "female" appropriate careers but that I wanted to make my parents proud by finding a career that I would excel in and bring out the best in me. I believe the type of career doesn't matter as long as the person is encouraged to grow, discover, learn, feel like they are contributing, accomplishing, and making a difference in the career they choose. I would encourage women to go after careers that will challenge them, motivate them, grow them as a person personally and professionally. There's a misconception about high school experiences I want to clarify. High school has helped many students find what they want to do in life, but for those who haven't figured it out, like myself back then, I think I shouldn't have pegged myself as being a type of person who shouldn't have looked into a technical career because I didn't like math and programming in high school. Though I still don't like math, I understand and have learned how to use it as a tool to get what I needed. I learned to look at programming in a different way, as an art, and it has opened up a new world to me. I also have to say, never let someone plan your life, your career, but be proactive and plan it yourself, and don't be embarrassed if you can't find the right career immediately.
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3/7/2023 03:07:24 pm
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3/7/2023 03:18:24 pm
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Jessica Stroupe, DVM
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