Club Spotlight: Women in STEM+ Club
Sophia, Emersen, and Kingsley Panigrahi are three bright and passionate sisters with the shared goal to foster a supportive environment for women interested in STEM fields at OHS. Fueled by their passion for this cause, the Panigrahi sisters founded the OHS Women in STEM+ Club. From counseling at a coding summer program to publishing an astronomy paper, all three sisters have firsthand experience in STEM fields and plan to pursue STEM careers in the future. Sophia, the oldest of the sisters and a junior at OHS, intends to pursue a career in medicine, currently planning to become a pediatric neurosurgeon. Emersen, in her sophomore year, has a passion for genetics and genetic engineering. And Kingsley, a freshman, finds an interest in medicine and aerospace engineering. “Our ultimate mission with this club is to empower women regardless of the career that they end up choosing, and show them that they can be more than what society often tells them,” explains Emersen.
As young women interested in STEM themselves, the Panigrahi sisters have recognized that women often face gender based barriers while attempting to pursue careers in these fields. They note that women are oftentimes underestimated due to their historical role as “emotional domestic figures,” and are thus characterized as less capable than men. They explain, “I think that also a lot of the times women aren’t encouraged to pursue careers in STEM as they’re often pushed towards careers that are viewed as more feminine.” These harmful stereotypes, along with gender discrimination they may face such as the pay gap, often discourage women from pursuing careers or interests in STEM fields. Expanding on her experience as a camp counselor at Coding X Entrepreneurship (a summer program run by Innoverge, an organization promoting STEM for underserved children), Emersen recalls, “I had two girls who were my kids for the week and they were just amazing at coding. They were so young, [and] I would hate to see them get discouraged and not pursue careers in STEM.” She hopes that the obstacles they might face will not hold them back in the future. She does not want their gender to be a factor that stops from pursuing their interests, and hopes to help address this goal through the OHS Women in STEM+ Club.
This enthusiasm to support other women in STEM to persevere and pursue their passion is what influenced Sophia, Emersen, and Kingsley to start their club, and they hope to bring an encouraging atmosphere to the OHS community. “We want to help [girls] continue their journey with science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine, and not give that up like so many young girls do due to lack of encouragement, lack of support, etcetera,” they explain. With its bi-weekly meetings, the Women in STEM+ Club fosters camaraderie while providing unique opportunities. By joining the club, OHS students are given the chance to to publish papers as well as learn from successful women in STEM through monthly mentor talks.
One meeting of the month aims to overview any upcoming projects, as well as discuss any current events regarding women in STEM. Sophia emphasizes that, “We want our club meetings to be a discussion, so it’s not where we’re just talking at everybody. We want everybody to have a chance to participate.” This meeting also covers paper writing opportunities. Papers are written collaboratively between members of the club who choose to participate, covering topics such as medicine and astronomy, with the eventual goal of being published. Club members who decide and contribute to these papers meet more times a month to work together; the club leaders designate sections of the paper and host work sessions for members to collaborate. Currently, the club is beginning to work on a paper regarding “the generational response to the treatment of epilepsy using medical marijuana.” This paper will eventually be published in the International Journal of High School Research in December or January.
The club also hosts monthly speaker talks from successful women in the STEM fields. One of the confirmed speakers is biomedical engineer Nina Tanden, the founder of Epibone. Epibone was one of the first companies to grow artificial bones and tissue to be transplanted. The club is also planning to host a Yale professor who focuses on pancreatic cancer treatment, along with a social worker from the University of California Irvine to come speak in the current fall semester. Sophia accentuates the “importance of getting feedback from mentors in the fields that you’re interested in,” and these speaker meetings will provide an opportunity for participants to ask questions and gain insights from these influential women.
Another way the Women in STEM+ club works to inspire girls at OHS is by hosting movie nights. “I think that also a lot of the time women lack inspiration because they don’t see a lot of strong females in the STEM fields. For example, there are a lot of movies about strong males in the STEM fields as mathematicians, but there are very few about females,” Kingsley illustrates. For their movie nights, the Panigrahi sisters specifically choose movies that do include intelligent and passionate female characters in STEM to provide role models and show girls at OHS that being successful in STEM fields is possible. The club has already hosted a movie night in September to watch Hidden Figures, a biographical movie about three African-American women who were crucial in the launching of John Glenn into space.
The Panigrahi sisters conclude “At OHS I think that so many females are interested in STEM […] and by starting a club like this I think that it will really help to drive them to believe that they can do it, even in the face of adversity. By knowing that they’re not alone in this journey and that they’re not the only ones that face these challenges … is a big deal, because even having that little bit of encouragement or support can make a big difference in [their] path.” If you are interested in joining a club created to encourage women in STEM, the Women in STEM+ club Skype group is linked below. The only requirement to join the club is that everyone be passionate to empower women, “not only in STEM, but in general!”