Role Models in STEM Fields

When someone says "science", "technology", "engineering", or "math", what is the picture that pops into your head? Most people would likely answer that they think of a male. When asked to describe that image more, they would likely say that they think of a white male. They may continue with glasses or a lab coat, depending on how detailed they are and which of the four words that they heard. However, there are an abundance of people within the STEM fields from all different backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, cultures, and beyond. Since students within schools are not only white males, they need to be able to see themselves reflected in STEM fields, so that they know their aspirations are validated and possible. If students can find role models in different STEM fields that they can identify with, they will know that those STEM fields are also possibilities for them to achieve, if that is what they desire. Sometimes, it is hard to find people that fit those qualifications. Since I wanted to start showing my students people they could see as role models, I thought I would also include this information on a blog in the hopes that it would help someone else as well.  This is in no way an exhaustive list, and it does not cover all of the accomplishments that these incredible people have achieved, but this is a good starting place.

Women in STEM fields: 

• Barbara Askins--She invented the autoradiograph.  The process used in the autoradiograph was used in astronomy, but became more popular when used to enhance X-ray images (Best_Schools, 2020).
• Ana Caraiani--She was born in Romania and has contributed greatly to the field of mathematics.  She has worked a lot with problems at the interface of the Langlands correspondence with arithmetic algebraic geometry (Best_Schools, 2020).
• Uma Chowdhry--She was born in India and has contributed to chemistry, engineering, and materials science.  She has worked on ceramics and superconductors, catalysis, proton conductors, microelectronics, and nanotechnology (Best_Schools, 2020).
• Jennifer A. Doudna--She has done a lot of work with biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology.  She has found a method for gene editing called "CRISPR/Cas9" which has revolutionized gene studies (Best_Schools, 2020).
• Faiza Mohammed Al-Kharafi--She was born in Kuwait.  She has worked with chemistry, electrochemistry, and technology.  She has been president of Kuwait University, and her scientific work has included corrosion in various technological systems (Best_Schools, 2020).  
• Mary-Claire King--She has worked with genetics.  Some of her important work has led to advances in breast cancer.  Because of her work, women can learn if they are more likely to deal with breast cancer, and those same techniques have been used to learn about other genetic illnesses (Best_Schools, 2020).
• Jane X. Luu--She was born in Saigon and fled South Vietnam at the age of 11.  She has done work on astronomy and astrophysics, including the discovery of Kuiper Belt (Best_Schools, 2020).
• Katia P. Sycara--She was born in Greece.  She has worked in computer science, artificial intelligence, and robotics.  She has done an abundance of work and has authored or co-authored more than 300 papers (Best_Schools, 2020). 

Black individuals in STEM fields: 

• Mark Dean--He was a computer programmer that worked for IBM.  Of the company's nine original patents, he actually held three of them!  He worked to develop the original home computer and devices that could connect to a PC (iD Tech).
• Guion Bluford, Jr.--He was the first black man to travel to space.  He was an engineer that took multiple trips to space and worked for NASA (iD Tech).
• Kimberly Bryant--She was an electrical engineer for years.  She also founded Black Girls Code (iD Tech).
• Katherine Johnson--She was a mathematician for NASA.  She, along with two other black women Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, were an integral part of NASA winning the Space Race (iD Tech).
• Mae Jemison--She was an astronaut that was the first African American woman in space.  She also is a doctor that worked for the Peace Corps (iD Tech).  
• Vivien Thomas--He was a surgical technician.  He contributed to operation techniques and helped ensure babies that had blue baby syndrome would get enough oxygen in their blood to help them survive.  He also helped create the Blalock-Taussig shunt (iD Tech).
• Marie M. Daly--She was the first African American woman to get a PhD in chemistry.  She helped to find a connection between high cholesterol and clogged arteries, shining light on the relationship between diet and bodily health (iD Tech).  
• Kunle Olukotun--He helped create the multi-core processor.  He also founded the Pervasive Parallelism Lab at Stanford, which worked to make creating software for multi-core processors easier (iD Tech).

Asian or Pacific Island individuals in STEM fields: 

• Liu Yang--She is Chinese.  She became the first female Chinese astronaut in 2012.  She was also a Chinese Air Force Pilot (Jankoski).
• Robert Tijan--He was born in Hong Kong and works in biochemistry.  He has contributed greatly to gene regulation and expression (Jankoski).
• Dr. Ted Fujita--He studied tornadoes, among a number of other things he was curious about.  His studies on tornadoes led him to create a six-point rating scale for them, named the Fujita Scale (Public Broadcasting Service).  
• Jerry Yang--He is Taiwanese-American.  He has done a lot of work with computer programming and the internet.  He was the co-founder of Yahoo! Inc (Public Broadcasting Service).
• Reshma Saujani--She is of Gujarati Indian descent.  She has a background working with in the legal field, but founded the technology organization Girls Who Code.  She has also written a book with the same name (Public Broadcasting Service).
• Satya Nadella--He is Indian-American.  Currently, he is the CEO of Microsoft (Public Broadcasting Service).
• Ellison Onizuka--He was Hawaiian.  He was an engineer and an astronaut for NASA.  He passed away on the Space Shuttle Challenger in a tragic accident at the age of 39 (Public Broadcasting Service).
• Chien-Shiung Wu--She was Chinese-American.  She worked with experimental physics and is often called the "First Lady of Physics".  She helped with the Manhattan Project and contributed much to nuclear physics (Public Broadcasting Service).  

Latinx individuals in STEM fields: 

• Arnaldo J. Diaz Vazquez--He has done a lot of research in pharmacology at Perelman School of Medicine.  He has worked with different pieces of technology and how they impact biological systems (Termini).
• Carolina Barillas-Mury--She has worked with a lot of research on mosquitos.  She has done research on mosquitos and other parasites impact malaria transmission (Termini).
• Ellen Ochoa--She was the first Hispanic/Latina woman in space as an astronaut.  She is also an engineer and was director of the Johnson Space Center (Termini).
• Enrique M. De la Cruz--He has done work with molecular biophysics and biochemistry.  His research centers around actin cytoskeleton, molecular motor proteins, and nucleotide signaling enzymes (Termini).
• Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado--He is a molecular biologist.  He has worked for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  He has done a lot of research on how animal regeneration works (Termini).
• Pamela Padilla--She works for the University of North Texas and teaches classes on genetics and stress physiology.  Her research is centered around how organisms handle environmental stress (Termini).
• Ricardo Correa--He works at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix.  His research has centered are endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism (Termini).
• Yarimar Carrasquillo--She currently does a lot of research.  Her research has centered around pathological pain states and what anatomical, molecular, and cellular mechanisms are relevant (Termini).

Native American/Indigenous individuals in STEM fields: 

• Andrea Delgado-Olsen--She is part of the Ione Band of Miwok Indians. She is a program manager for two companies. She is also the founder of Native American Women in Computing (Valley, 2017). 
• Dezbah Hatathli--She is a part of the Diné (Navajo).  She studied Anthropology and has held a number of occupations such as archeologist, crime science specialist, and dispatcher for the police, fire, and ambulatory services.  She is now a vehicle operations specialist (Valley, 2017).
• Jonathon Fisk--He is affiliated with the Taíno.  He has been working to get his PhD in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management.  He is queer, genderqueer, and disabled (Valley, 2017).
• Kat Li--She is affiliated with the Anishnaabe.  She has worked at both Quora and Stripe.  She also led a team at Digit, which is an automated savings tool (Valley, 2017).
• Luke Lightning--He is a part of the Buffalo Point First Nation.  He is a managing partner of LAUNCH, has worked as a researcher for biological technology.  He is involved with a number of multicultural and Native American heritage organizations and events (Valley, 2017).
• Matthew Yazzie--He is the founder and CEO of a nonprofit that works to gather, organize, and disperse diversity and inclusion data.  He has worked for a number of other socially conscious organizations and technology companies (Valley, 2017).
• Nicole Archambault--She is affiliated with the Wampanoag/Pokanoket Nation.  She created La Vie en Code, which is a blog, podcast, and online courses to assist others in teaching themselves and switching careers.  She is self-taught (Valley, 2017).
• Tara Astigarraga--She is a part of the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma.  She has been a part of IBM for almost two decades and fulfilled multiple roles within the organization.  She also has over 65 patents filed and feels strongly about STEM within schools (Valley, 2017).

LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM fields:

• Dr. Sally Ride--She was the first American woman in space. She also co-founded Sally Ride Science, which was a non-profit to get more women interested in STEM fields. Sally had a long-term relationship with her partner Tam O'Shaughnessy until Ride's death in 2012 (8 Influential..., 2020). 

• Alan Turing--He was a mathematician during World War II that was credited with breaking the Nazi Enigma Code. He passed away in 1954 at the age of 41 from suicide because of what many think to be the ramifications of him being outed as gay 2 years previously, which was considered a crime at the time (8 Influential..., 2020). 

• Jack Andraka--He developed a pancreatic detection tool at the age of 15! He is currently 23 and continuing to create new robotics and technological tools to assist with healthcare. He looked to Alan Turing as a gay role model and hopes to be that for others (8 Influential..., 2020). 

• Mary Gray--She is the author or co-author of multiple books while working as a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research. She completes a lot of research on technology and how it impacts the world. She identifies as queer (8 Influential..., 2020). 

• Jon "Maddog" Hall--He worked as the Department Head of Computer Science at Hartford State Technical College and currently works as the Chairman of the Board for the Linux Professional Institute. He is a programmer and works with all sorts of computers in a variety of ways. He came out as gay in celebration of Alan Turing's 100th birthday (8 Influential..., 2020). 

• Martin Lo--He is a mathematician who has worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1986. He developed the LTool to help determine trajectories for spacecraft (8 Influential..., 2020). 

• Lynn Conway--She helped create supercomputers and has worked at IBM, Memorex, and Xerox. She was born biologically male, but had gender reassignment surgery (8 Influential..., 2020). 

• Audrey Tang--She was considered an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley at the age of 19. She is Taiwan's youngest government minister and the first transgender Cabinet member. She was born biologically male and has had gender reassignment surgery (8 Influential..., 2020). 

• Tim Cook--He is the CEO of Apple and is gay (8 Influential..., 2020). 

References: 

8 Influential LGBTQ+ People in STEM to Celebrate This Pride Month. (2020, June 12). https://www.topcoder.com/8-lgbtq-people-in-stem-to-celebrate-this-pride-month/. 

Best_Schools. (2020, October 29). 50 Top Women in STEM. TheBestSchools.org. https://thebestschools.org/features/50-top-women-in-stem/. 

iD Tech. 16 Black STEM Innovators & Famous Leaders: Engineer Role Models. iD Tech. https://www.idtech.com/blog/black-stem-innovators-who-defined-modern-world. 

Jankoski, T. 5 STEM Leaders your Students Should Know About. https://blog.stemscopes.com/5-stem-leaders-your-students-should-know-about. 

Public Broadcasting Service. AAPI History Spotlight: Saluting STEM Pioneers. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/articles/2020/05/aapi-history-spotlight-saluting-stem-pioneers/. 

Termini, C. 100 inspiring Hispanic/Latinx scientists in America. Home. http://crosstalk.cell.com/blog/100-inspiring-hispanic-latinx-scientists-in-america. 

Valley, W. of S. (2017, November 29). Just 18 Really Awesome Native Folks in STEM. Medium. https://medium.com/women-of-silicon-valley/just-18-awesome-native-folks-in-stem-134211ff14cd.