The recently established student organization Women in STEM hosted a round table discussion about the place of women in the sciences on September 23. The talk featured several guest speakers including Dr. Sian Proctor from the Association for Women Geoscientists Distinguished Lecturer Series.
Cynthia Morales-Bejarano established Women in STEM when she couldn’t find an active organization on campus that focused on women in the sciences.
“As a woman of color in science, I felt there was a lack of community for fellow women,” said Morales-Bejarano. “My primary goal is to create a sense of community between all of the different science departments on campus where women can network and socialize with one another. Basically, I hope to build a space that will be supportive and encouraging during hardships and that helps everyone navigate through the science fields as well as being a woman in those fields.”
Morales-Bejarano, a physics and applied mathematics major with a minor in Spanish, looks forward to the upcoming round table discussion and hopes that women of all science majors will feel more empowered.
“I hope that by having successful women come and share the paths they took, as well as what they would have done differently, my peers and I will feel our career dreams are attainable,” said Morales-Bejarano.
Morales-Bejarano’s primary take-away was, “Apply for everything.”
“I was pleasantly surprised at how many students came to the talk. I hope that we can continue having guest speakers visit campus and help us all understand how to continue combating the inequalities one faces going in to STEM fields. While the name of our organization specifies women in the field, there are other groups (like people of color or those from very rural areas) that aren’t being encouraged to enter science.”
“Personally, I found each of our speakers informative and a new inspiration source. From Stacey, I learned that there is a lot that can be done within the local area beyond farming. From Elisa, I learned that no matter where you start, the important part is that you start working towards a career that makes you happy. From Sian, I learned that I’ll never get the opportunity I tell myself I don’t deserve; APPLY FOR EVERYTHING.”
Caption: Morales-Bejarano at the Shoemaker Building in Flagstaff, AZ where she worked at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in their astrogeology department doing Mars research through an National Science Foundation (NFS) funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program.
BIOGRAPHIES OF SPEAKERS
Dr. Elisa Quintana (left): Dr. Quintana is a research scientist with the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center where she works on the Kepler Mission to help search for and characterize extrasolar planets. Most recently, she led a team of astronomers to confirm Kepler-186f, the first earth-sized planet found to orbit within the habitable zone of another star. Dr. Quintana received a B.S. in physics from the University of California, San Diego in 1997. She moved to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for her graduate studies where she earned an M.S. in physics and an M.S. in aerospace science. In 1999, she received a NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program fellowship and moved to NASA Ames Research Center in California to perform her thesis research on planet formation in binary star systems. In 2004 Dr. Quintana received her Ph.D. in physics, and she joined the Kepler team in 2006. She has since remained at NASA Ames working on both planet formation models and exoplanet discovery and characterization with Kepler data.
Dr. Sian Proctor (center): Dr. Proctor is a geology professor at South Mountain Community College (SMCC) in Phoenix, Arizona. She has a bachelor’s of science degree in environmental science, a master’s of science in geology, and a Ph.D. in science education. Both her master’s and doctoral research involved the use of technology to understand how individuals learn. She teaches hybrid and online geology, planetary science, and sustainability classes and has traveled and taught around the world. Sian has a passion for space exploration and photography. She helped run a summer internship program at Kennedy Space Center, has been a mentor for the Arizona Space Grant Consortium, and was a finalist for the 2009 NASA Astronaut Program. In 2013, she was the education outreach officer on a four-month NASA-funded mock Mars mission called Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation. During the mock Mars mission, she created education outreach videos and had a photography contract for Discover magazine. In 2014 she was a PolarTREC teacher researching climate change and coastal erosion in Barrow, Alaska. This spring Sian was featured in a new PBS series called Genius with Stephen Hawking. She’s in Episode 3: Are We Alone where she learns to search for intelligent life in the universe. Sian spent the summer on a South America adventure where she was a 2016 ACEAP Astronomy Ambassador to Chile. Sian enjoys reading, cooking, and exploring new places.
Stacey Armstrong (right): Stacey joined the Watershed Committee staff in March 2007. Stacey is a graduate of Southwest Missouri State University (currently MSU) with a bachelor of science in geography with a minor in cartographic sciences and community and regional planning. She is a graduate of Leadership Springfield Class 31 and was awarded a Group Study Exchange International Travel Grant to India by Rotary Foundation District 6080 in 2015. Stacey has served on the Springfield/Greene County Stormwater Management Task Force and Willard Source Water Protection Committee. During her career, Stacey has managed over 1.8 million dollars in grant funding to complete projects in the areas of wastewater, storm water, source water protection, watershed planning, and water monitoring. Stacey enjoys working with community partners to protect local drinking water supplies and connecting people with water information and resources.