
Mariel has been reaching for the stars from an early age, blazing her own trail to an engineering career at Northrop Grumman. Researchers can only speculate about the relative roles of men and women thousands of years ago, as they made shelters and clothing, tamed fire, and domesticated animals and plants.Prior to the great civilizations of early Greece and Rome, women are known to have practiced medicine in ancient Egypt. Now, she’s a systems engineering manager at our campus in Redondo Beach, California. Her passion for exploration and her mastery of subject material put Mariel at the top of her class in school and got her noticed by Northrop Grumman in 2006. When one hears the acronym STEM within an educational setting, they may think along the lines of stem cell research or something dealing with flowers (Angier, 2010). At that age, I used to tell my parents when I grew up I was going to work for NASA.” Introduction What is this term they call STEM education Most people are in the dark and moreover, most educators and students are as well. “As a third grader, I knew I wanted to explore space and build rockets. Men in STEM earn more and receive more opportunities for advancement and awards. In academe, 28 percent of STEM professors and associate professors in the United States are women, despite women receiving 40 percent of STEM Ph.D.s for the past 10 to 15 years. “All of my teachers really celebrated my math and science skills and my curiosity,” she says. Underrepresentation of women is particularly pronounced and pernicious in STEM fields. Across 13 major STEM society awards, 17 of award winners were female (Lincoln et al., 2012) compared with. It has implications for workforce development. The term is typically used in the context of education policy or curriculum choices in schools.

And while women have these qualities in spades, historic processes, policies and cultural perceptions have often kept women away from pursuing STEM jobs.īut the needle is moving because talented and determined women are joining the innovative companies who recognize the importance of diversity in STEM careers.Ĭonsider Mariel: Born in Mexico City, she moved to the United States when she was seven and found solace from culture shock in astronomy. The need to intensify womens positioning in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is currently under the spotlight of public. Awards for research in STEM remain male-dominated. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics ( STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

STEM careers require more than skill: They require passion, determination and creativity.
