Statistically speaking, male students are three times more likely to pursue Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic (STEM majors and careers than their female counterparts. These statistics, however, don’t tell the story for Floridians Lindsay Altidor and Janani Kumaran. These young women are determined to pursue their passions for STEM in school and beyond.
Enamored with Neurons
Lindsay Altidor is usually somewhat shy, but when she starts to talk about science, you can see the excitement on her face and hear it in her voice. “I’ve always loved science,” said Altidor, a junior at the University of Florida. It’s a love that can be traced back to when Altidor was in elementary school. "My mom would read her anatomy and physiology textbooks to me, Altidor, a native of Florida, said. She was so inspired by her parents’ love of science - both her mom and dad are registered nurses - tha she built a solar oven for her school’s fourth grade science fair. The oven could actually bake cookies.
“But it wasn’t until high school,” Altidor said, “that I really buckled down and decided I want to be a neurologist.” As a sophomore at Palm Beach Central High School, Altidor’s science teacher, William Bartenslager, encouraged her to enter another science fair. Bartenslager helped her find the focus of her project.
“The idea of my project was to try and create a scaffold to allow people to grow organs with their biological signature or stem cells,” she said.
Cell scaffolds serve as a base to create new tissues for medical purposes. If doctors could grow organs based on patients’ stem cells, for instance, they wouldn’t have to rely on donor organs. Altidor used chicken livers as her scaffold.
“The first year was about creating that scaffold because even if you have one cell from the chicken, it won’t work,” she said. Altidor’s interest in her project led her to keep building upon her experiment through senior year. “The second year, I focused on whether or not cells could grow on that scaffold and also created an artificial scaffold with the 3D printer and compared the two scaffolds. The final year, I used donated stem cells and the cells could recognize the biological markers like a liver scaffold and differentiate into liver cells. That was the final achievement.”
As Altidor’s experiment progressed, so too did her confidence. She had a hard time explaining her project to judges her first year because of nervousness, and she didn’t place in the top ten competitors. The second year, she placed at the county science fair, and the third and final year “I didn’t place internationally, but I made it,” Altidor said with pride. “I always have to work really, really hard at whatever I do. But I always excel in steps. That was very apparent in my high school life. I went from county to state to international and entered the next phase of my life in college.”
Altidor is now pursuing a medical degree to become a neurologist and a doctorate degree to also be a neuroscientist. “Nothing makes me feel the same excitement as neuroscience,” she said. “It’s hard to explain, but I just get really excited when I work with anything that has to do with the brain.”
Solving Real World Problems
Janani Kumaran of Gainesville considered her surroundings when she chose a science fair project. That’s why the Gainesville High School freshman decided to try and solve the hydrilla infestation she saw in lakes and ponds in her city. “People used hydrilla in their home aquariums and when they were done, they’d dump it in lakes and it spreads like weeds.” Kumaran said.
Hydrilla verticillata, or hydrilla, is an invasive plant species that grows in water and can shade out all other plant species because of its rapid and dense growth. The spread of hydrilla had become a problem all around the state. Kumaran introduced snails to control hydrilla growth, an approach that garnered her first place in the state science fair. However, Kumaran wasn’t satisfied. “I knew that just snails would never be enough because I tried that first,” she said. "They’re already in the environment. They’re just not being implemented. But hydrilla grows so fast In her second year of the project, Kumaran added another element to her approach. “I experimented with integrated control methods using snails and herbicide at very low levels,” she said. “Basically, I tested both separately and together to see which was the best style and they were more effective combined.” Again, Kumaran took first place in the state science fair when she combined snails and herbicide. That same year, she entered the Broadcom MASTERS competition where she placed second in the science category of the STEM awards and won a $2,500 prize and an iPad. “A lot of science fair kids do baking-soda based experiments,” said Kumaran, whose mom is a biologist. “But I want to work on experiments that help people in real life.”
Kumaran’s dad, Muthusami Kumaran, is an associate professor of nonprofit management at the University of Florida. He says his daughter has always been inquisitive. “Ever since she was little, Janani asked questions about everything so we taught her there are scientific methods to find the answers and she has loved science ever since,” he said. “It’s always good to inspire your kids and teach them to search for the answers themselves.”
For her next experiment, Kumaran, who wants to be a psychiatrist someday, is studying mosquitoes to identify the gene that makes them resistant to certain insecticides in order to help combat the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. She’s already started to dive into the research.
“I need to ID a bunch of mosquitos first. But I found a mosquito species that is a vector for malaria,” Kumaran said. “I have around 200 mosquitos with six genuses and maybe four species of each.”
The Changing Tide of STEM
The passion and enthusiasm Altidor and Kumaran have for science reflects a shift in STEM education and move towards greater inclusion for girls and young women. Although more male students continue to pursue these subjects, the number of initiatives and organizations designed to eliminate gender disparities within science, technology, engineering and math careers are leading to change. The need for greater representation of young women in STEM is an issue that is getting national and global attention. For instance, groups such as UNESCO or the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization released a commissioned report detailing the unconscious biases that undermine girls’ confidence. The report also included strategies to support girls’ interest in STEM. The American Association of University Women (AAUW, meanwhile, is moving beyond the statistics by investing $1.7 million in fellowships and grants for women in STEM fields. Then there’s businesswoman Debbie Sterling. She launched her company GoldieBlox, an imaginative line of building sets and toys, to inspire a passion for engineering in girls seven and up.
“The fastest-growing jobs worldwide require engineering and tech training.” Sterling said. “If we truly want women to have equal opportunities, we need to intervene at a young age to ensure we are encouraging them and building their interest early on, so that they even consider STEM in the first place. We need to present STEM in a way that will appeal to girls. If we can do that, endless doors will open by giving women access to the same economic opportunities that men already have.”
It also helps to have educators believe in you. Both Altidor and Kumaran have had teachers, professors, and advisors who saw them as scientists more than capable of conducting complicated experiments. “Dr. Michael D. Netherland helped me with my hydrilla and snail experiment,” Kumaran said of the University of Florida associate professor who specializes in invasive aquatic species. “He was so excited when I went to Broadcom that he told everyone in the lab, even people I didn’t know.”
Staying motivated also plays a part. For Kumaran, environmental factors drive her. For one, her mother is a scientist. But she’s also enrolled in a proaram at school with other like-minded students. A study conducted by the American Educational Research Association suggests that girls are to the same economic opportunities that men already have.
It also helps to have educators believe in you. Both Altidor and Kumaran have had teachers, professors, and advisors who saw them as scientists more than capable of conducting complicated experiments. “Dr. Michael D. Netherland helped me with my hydrilla and snail experiment.” Kumaran said of the University of Florida associate professor who specializes in invasive aquatic species. “He was so excited when I went to Broadcom that he told everyone in the lab, even people I didn’t know.”
Staying motivated also plays a part. For Kumaran, environmental factors drive her. For one, her mother is a scientist. But she’s also enrolled in a program at school with other like-minded students. A study conducted by the American Educational Research Association suggests that girls are more motivated by the support of others than boys when it comes to pursuing STEM. “I thought that people would be like, 'Oh, she’s such a nerd. She likes science! But when people hear more about what I’m doing, they get interested too,” Kumaran said. “Everyone has questions that they want to learn about and they want to pursue, so when you do it, they don’t think it’s that weird anymore.”
For Altidor, consistent progress is the key. “No matter what you do, if you take steps toward that goal, it’s better than not doing anything at all,” she said. “It will give you the confidence and drive to keep moving forward and you’ll be that much closer to your goal. Once you have that mindset, your goals and dreams will manifest. Now I feel like I can do anything through hard work.”