Tag: Women in STEM

With SisterMentors, Dr. Shireen Lewis Is Building a Fierce Future for Women and Girls of Color in Education

Two decades ago, Ms. had the honor of interviewing the founder of SisterMentors, Dr. Shireen Lewis, in its Summer 2000 issue—and here we are again, just as SisterMentors celebrates its 25th anniversary.

Lewis has dedicated her entire professional life to creating and growing SisterMentors, a nonprofit organization that helps women and girls of color in the education system. Through her work, she is empowering young women and girls of color to overcome deep-seated institutional inequities in the education system.

“I see Black and Brown women and girls as having a major role to play in helping to save the world. And we’re not just talking academia, but leaders in the public and the private sector.”

ICYMI: ‘Everything You Need to Know About Birth Control’ with Dr. Sophia Yen

In this time of crisis, Dr. Sophia Yen says it’s essential we take charge of our own reproductive health. Yen is the CEO and co-founder of Pandia Health, the only doctor-led and women-founded and -led birth control delivery company. She is a board-certified physician with a focus in adolescent medicine, and serves as a clinical associate professor at Stanford Medical School in the Department of Pediatrics.

In a Ms. webinar on Tuesday, “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Birth Control,” Yen broke down the best forms of birth control and emergency contraception, why you should consider skipping your period, how to get abortion pills (even if you live in a state with a ban), and more.

Overturning Roe Will Exacerbate the Black Maternal Mortality Crisis. It’s Time for Our Leaders To Act

Black women’s health and bodily autonomy have been under consistent, unrelenting attack for centuries, a reality that holds true today. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and deny millions of people the constitutional right to abortion is expected to disproportionately hurt Black women. Policies that seek to improve Black maternal health must necessarily include policies that expand access to abortion care.

Demystifying Cyber: Cybersecurity Should Be on Everyone’s Radar, Says Congressional Staffer Hope Goins

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Demystifying Cybersecurity highlights the experiences of Black practitioners, driving a critical conversation on race in the cybersecurity industry, and shining a light on Black experts in their fields.

This month, we spoke with Hope Goins, the majority staff director of the U.S. Committee on Homeland Security, about how cybersecurity affects everyone. “We need to find ways to make people realize the practical application of cybersecurity to their lives—from ensuring that children consume information via secure platforms to understanding how utilities like water and energy can be impacted by poor security.”

Cecilia Aragon: Women in Data Science Breaking Down Binaries and Taking a Human-Centered Approach

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While the total number of women receiving college degrees increases, what hinders the expansion of diversity in the data science field? To address this persistent gap, women working in the fields that feed into data science have been working to change the circumstances that hinders women from pursuing work in the field, as well urging society to consider the harmful consequences of a field which has historically excluded the voices of women.

Dr. Cecilia Aragon is a major contributor to these ongoing discussions. She is an award-winning author, airshow pilot and professor—the first Latina to earn the rank of full professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Washington in its 100-year history. Her interdisciplinary methods, active inclusion of diverse students with diverse academic backgrounds, and perceptive research questions, all challenge the traditional expectations of data scientists and question the false assumptions of data science.

Is Male Birth Control Finally at Hand?

With the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade severely curtailing women’s reproductive rights, it might seem an odd moment to report good news about male birth control. Nevertheless, researchers recently announced that male birth control trials with mice were wildly successful—99 percent effective at preventing pregnancy.

Depending on the result of human trials, the drug could soon be the first effective form of birth control for those with testes apart from condoms or vasectomies. Why has it taken so long?

‘A Whole Generation of People Who Don’t Know How To Take Care of People’: Training Ob-Gyn Medical Residents In a Post-Roe World

A peek into the first class of medical professionals applying to residency in a post-Roe America.

“My personal take is that it’s really hard to learn in an environment of scarcity and an environment of fear,” said Dr. Lauren Thaxton, an ob-gyn professor at the University of Texas Dell Medical School. “And I think that those are two things that are very realistic in some of these restrictive states.”

Demystifying Cyber: Raenesia Jones Pays It Forward to Young Black Girls

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Demystifying Cybersecurity highlights the experiences of Black practitioners, driving a critical conversation on race in the cybersecurity industry, and shining a light on Black experts in their fields.

This month, we spoke with Raenesia Jones, a cybersecurity operations analyst, about how her work keeps people safe and educates the next generation of Black women. “there are pervasive gender biases that have prevented women from going into cyber but I think it’s time we change that. I’d like for little girls to see someone who looks like them doing the work, so that they too can see themselves in this industry.”

Caring Work and Its Discontents

The basic problem in many fields today, including politics, is the discounting of so-called feminine skills we all count on—but generally fail to acknowledge by anything more than annual flowers and apples. Both nurses and teachers of any gender are paid as little money as possible, and command too few resources for taking care of their tasks. Because they care, this matters.