Energy.gov

"For female students to consider a STEM career, they need personal encouragement from instructors or counselors at an early age. In addition to hearing encouraging words from instructors and counselors, women need to see—in posters, videos and career events with women actually working in STEM disciplines—what a typical day looks like for women employed as technicians in STEM workplaces."

"My high school guidance counselor once told me “girls from our high school don’t get to be doctors”. Fortunately, I was too stubborn to believe him, but we need to make sure that this type of ignorance is gone from our thinking."

"Take math, science, and computer classes throughout your schooling. Most important, participate in internships. The internships allow you to understand what excites you, and to get to know prospective employers. Also check coursework in the engineering schools. Try to work with your professors on their research projects."

"Create more opportunities for everyone to experience the possibilities STEM offers. Demonstrate by example how it impacts the world we live in and how it opens up new possibilities. The experience of personally solving a problem with software I created had a profound impact on me, much more so than simply hearing or reading about computer scientists."

"The key to STEM engagement is exposure. It’s all about the spark that happens when you learn something new that you can’t stop thinking about; it all seems possible when the face you see doing it, looks like yours."

"I work in a place that has the fastest supercomputers, one of the most powerful lasers, and contributes to the safety and security of our nation. I work in information technology, which is a fundamental part of everyone’s job and is changing constantly. I love the challenge, the technology, and the people."

"Children are inherently inquisitive. Read to them. Explore with them. Make science relatable and exciting with hands-on projects and outings. I don’t know the answers to half the things my kids ask me, so we research and learn together."

"My mother shared with me her love of mathematics and inspired me to see the beauty in numbers and patterns. I found the logic of science appealing and my father, though not in STEM, encouraged me to follow my older siblings into engineering, even though this was a rare choice for girls in India at that time."

"I have always had an innate interest in solving problems and that was cultivated from a young age with chemistry sets, puzzles and interesting dinner table conversations. Math and Computer Science, the two fields I pursued, present challenging problems to be understood and solved."

"Engineering is always looking for interested girls! I recommend that you find a way to stay engaged and good at math. Math is key to every field of engineering. This might mean going beyond merely attending your classes and doing your homework to finding on-line resources, getting tutoring or building a support group of people at school that all help each other with math."

"It is exciting to be able to help decision makers gain insight into challenging problems by developing and providing tools they need."

"Creating positive role models goes a long way. Movies and TV shows that portray women as strong and technically gifted help girls realize they have choices in their career paths."

"I think a good way to encourage greater diversity in STEM is to invite a more diverse set of students at all ages to visit labs and technical companies and then hire them into intern positions when they are still in high school. This can provide a pipeline of more diverse students and it can give young women and other underrepresented groups experience in STEM and motivation to continue with their science education and pursue careers in STEM."

"Parents have a primary role in opening up possibilities for their children and in equally encouraging them. I am grateful that my mom did not discriminate which of her children could pursue a higher education. We also need stronger role models in education. Laboratory scientists have long participated in educational efforts to re-energize high school teachers in the sciences."

"It is important to expose young girls to role models that can serve, inspire, and encourage them to cultivate their interest in science and engineering. In addition, formal mentoring programs could be established to provide that one-on-one counseling and feedback relationship that is critical to understanding key concepts."

"The combination of spending a lifetime doing what I excelled at in a variety of domains with a potential of having an impact on a grand scale was thrilling. It is what kept me in STEM and brought me to the national lab."

"It’s ok if you get a B in geometry or physics; it doesn’t mean you’re bad at math or bad at science. We need to develop individual interests, and to make them gender blind. STEM needs to be equal opportunity for anyone that is interested."

"Dive in. Don’t be afraid to do the work and ask questions. Initially, I was intimidated going into college, having been out for so long; but I encourage others to go back, it is never too late to learn things.When in the workforce, you have to ask questions and engage. You have to take that risk—to follow the engineering work in the field and be okay with making mistakes."

"We should make the connections to other aspects of their lives. Most, importantly we should demystify the fact that STEM fields are hard and only for "boys". This needs to be taught often and repeatedly to young girls throughout elementary, middle school and high school. So, when they get to college they will be ready and excited about STEM and not afraid of it."

"In order to be the best in one's field, one needs to work for the best and also be in the company of the brightest. It is my privilege to be part of the workforce at the Energy Department. Its excellent scientific resources and organization are key to its outstanding position."

"Don't be afraid to try things, ask for the internship or job even if you don't think you can get it. I started working for a professor my first semester of college. I didn't think I had a chance of him hiring me but I still asked. Internships and working experience are so important to help you figure out what you want to do and gain real-world experience of all the classes you take. It can really help steer you towards what you want to do."

"Women in science have come far but we have a long way to go. Women in particular can feel torn between having a work life and having a family life. Women need to understand it’s not an either/or. It’s an ‘and.’ It’s not easy to find that balance, and the balance shifts frequently, but it’s important to me that all of our staff feel like they can have that balance."

"It’s exciting, as a Native American woman engineer, to provide technical assistance to tribes who are interested in renewable energy projects... I draw from my cultural heritage to explain options to Native people and I serve as a cultural interpreter to my team members."

"When I speak to students, I tell them that they really do need to pay attention to math and science in school. We have a STEM literacy problem in this country, and science, technology, engineering and math need to be better incorporated into classes."

"It is very fascinating to find out something truly fundamental about nature, e.g. finding a new law of nature or a new fundamental particle. I was among the people discovering the Higgs boson last year and just purely the fact that we have experimentally found a particle which was theoretically assumed to be there for nearly 50 years is amazing."