Worcester Business Journal

10 Worcester Business Journal | October 30, 2017 | wbjournal.com WPI and area companies are pushing to recruit more women into science and technology BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor Women in STEM I t didn't take long for Sadie Dominguez to find computer coding was for her. She was hooked during a class during her freshman year at a high school outside San Francisco when she learned how to write HTML, which decides what a website looks like. It didn't take Dominguez long, either, to notice something else when she'd go to a science summer camp or sit down at a cybersecurity club: there were very few other girls. She was surprised. She went to an all-girls high school and didn't realize there would be a gender gap. But Dominguez, a freshman at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, wasn't deterred upon entering the college club filled almost entirely with men. "OK, I'll change that," she recalled telling herself. "I'll show up." WPI – and the rest of the science, technology, math and engineering world – needs more young women like Dominguez. STEM fields have very few women, but colleges are working to change that. At WPI, this fall's freshman class was 44-percent female, up from 34 percent a year ago – WPI's previous high mark. Colleges like WPI and large employ- ers of engineers and scientists, includ- ing Central Massachusetts companies Boston Scientific, MathWorks and Waters Corp., are looking to women to help round out the workforce and meet a growing demand for workers in the field. They're starting young – all the way to elementary school, when chil- dren already start thinking of what they want to be when they grow up. "We're banking of the fact that 5-year- old girls who enjoy playing with slime will have a soft spot for science," said Kristin Tichenor, a senior vice president at WPI who oversees enrollment. Recruiting women into STEM About a decade ago, WPI stopped requiring prospective students to sub- mit SAT scores, feeling standardized tests can work against women and minorities. When reviewing applica- tions, the school emphasizes subjec- tive factors before looking at grades. Since then, applications from women have risen by 81 percent. Then the school took about $1 mil- lion each year was once used for merit appeals – when students ask for more financial aid than initially granted – and directed it to scholarships for women to study STEM. "It was a calculated risk," Andrew Palumbo, the dean of admissions and financial aid, said of no longer devoting money to merit appeals. This fall, for the first time, WPI gave $20,000 grants to five incoming girls studying STEM, including Dominguez. Young women considering a STEM career at WPI don't need to look far. Laurie Leshin, who became WPI's first female president in 2013, is a former deputy director of NASA's mission to send a human to Mars. Leshin – whose Twitter handle is @LaurieofMars – was a scientist for the Curiosity rover mis- sion on Mars and remains on call as a monitor of the program. Leshin has helped bring a spotlight to the issue of so few women in the field. In April, WPI was one of eight schools to host a program for students to talk with GE employees, including WPI alumnae, about being a woman in STEM. This month, the college hosted a talk on the subject by 2001 alumna Urvashi Tyagi, the director of engineer- ing at online audio company Audible. WPI and STEM employers are doing more, but have a long way before women are represented equally in the field. The importance of women in STEM Women account for less than one out of five degrees in computer sciences or engineering, according to the National Girls Collaborative Project, which How WPI compares to the national leaders in equal STEM participation, and other notable colleges. Women training in STEM Includes all colleges with at least 500 degrees per year. STEM majors include agriculture, agriculture operations, and related sciences; computer and information sciences and support services; engineering; engineering technologies and engineering-related fields; biological and biomedical sciences; mathematics and statistics; physical sciences; science technologies/technicians Source: EMSI 2011-12 2012 2013 2014 2015 School Female Share -2013 -2014 -2015 -2016 WPI freshman Sadie Dominguez, in the school's Salisbury Labs, discovered in high school that she wanted to study programming. She's one of five recipients of a new scholarship program to encourage women to study STEM subjects. Emory University 57% 52% 58% N/A 59% University of Massachusetts-Amherst 35% 35% 35% 36% 37% Massachusetts Institute of Technology 35% 35% 34% 35% 36% Worcester Polytechnic Institute 27% 30% 32% 28% 30% Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 27% 27% 28% 27% 26% Northeastern University 32% 31% 31% 34% 33% Rochester Institute of Technology 19% 20% 18% 21% 22% TOTAL 35% 35% 35% 35% 36% P H O T O / G R A N T W E L K E R

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