How To Re-Design How Girls Learn STEM - Suz Somersall, KiraKira

Guest User December 6, 2017

From her childhood as a self-confessed gaming nerd to her career as an engineering-inspired artist (or is it art-inspired engineer?), Suz Somersall has made a life of her own design. She's now the founder of KiraKira, a learning program that makes girls feel confident and excited about creating new products using 3D printing, design-thinking and STEAM concepts.

We’ll hear how Suz redefined her role from military wife to entrepreneur---with her husband fighting halfway across the world.

This week on "Inflection Point," Suz shares how, despite a career full of pivots, one's life can ultimately lead in the same direction all along.

Suz Somersall (in pink) and the KiraKira team

Decoding The Secret To Confidence at GE

Lauren Schiller March 27, 2017

What does Parseltongue have to do with coding? The GE Women's Network put on a day-long STEM event for sixty middle-school girls last November which included design-thinking and coding exercises–with a Harry Potter theme. During this "bring your daughters to work day" the girls learned they could make magic with code. The girls share their #codelikeagirl experience in this piece by producer Megan Jones.

Learn more about GE Girls at ge-girls.com.

Inspiring More Women in Science - Dr. Shruti Naik, The Rockefeller University

Lauren Schiller January 23, 2017

Dr. Shruti Naik is a scientist whose work led to the FDA ban on antibacterial soap in the US. She is now a postdoctoral scientist in immunology and stem cell biology at The Rockefeller University. Dr. Naik’s research focuses on understanding the role adult stem cells play in inflammation and how they can be used to treat inflammatory disorders of the skin, like psoriasis.

At The Rockefeller University, Dr. Naik has grown the Women in Science at Rockefeller (WISeR) program from six to over 250 members and has established a weekly breakfast series for trainees to network with prominent female scientists.

Dr. Naik is also one of L'Oréal USA 2016's winners of the "For Women In Science Award" for her research.

Listen to our conversation at the link above, or at NPR One.

Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code

Lauren Schiller June 20, 2016

Only about a quarter of computer professionals are women--and that's actually down from 1990 when it was 36%. Girls Who Code is a non-profit organization whose mission is to change all that by closing the gender gap in computer science. Founded in 2012 by Reshma Saujani, the program is on track to educate more than 40,000 girls in all 50 states this year. Her goal: one million women in computer science by 2020. And we'll need them. In less than 10 years, the United States will have 1.7 million jobs for engineers and computing professionals. Without girls, we will literally not have enough qualified people to fill these jobs.

Talia Milgrom-Elcott, founder of 100Kin10

Lauren Schiller March 15, 2016

While the number of jobs in science, technology, engineering and math--also known as STEM--continue to grow, the number of students studying those fields at the college level continues to shrink. Yet in states like California and others across the nation, there is a STEM teacher shortage in K-12 schools--resulting in an education gap that may leave many students under-prepared for our increasingly tech focused economy. In President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address, he acknowledged this challenge by calling for 100,000 excellent stem teachers in 10 years. My guest Talia Milgrom-Elcott took this challenge to heart--and has created a non-profit organization aptly called "100Kin10".

Inflection Point

Hosted by Lauren Schiller