INSPIRE
AMANDA RICHIE TERZIAN
E
Mrs. Syracuse turns focus to heart health, STEM
AMANDA RICHIE TERZIAN DEDICATES HERSELF TO THE NEW STEM GOES RED INITIATIVE
Jason Klaiber
Photo by Lisa Rossi Photography
26
March 2021 2021
ven though her career trajectory has largely landed her in journalistic endeavors, heart health has been at the back of Amanda Richie Terzian’s mind all the while. As a lifelong running enthusiast, having participated in 32 half marathons and six full ones, the current Mrs. Syracuse places an emphasis on keeping in shape and staying active. Not only that: she also takes into account how cardiovascular disease runs in her family. Her mother lives with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, while her father began having heart murmurs in his late teens. Later he found himself unable to make it a full city block without becoming exhausted, at which point he discovered he had aortic valve stenosis and would need a pacemaker. “There were no ifs, ands or buts about it that heart health and education was going to be my mission going forth,” Terzian said. At the beginning of this year, she became the chair of the Syracusebased STEM Goes Red initiative, part of a countrywide undertaking by the American Heart Association centered around the encouragement of young women who wish to enter the STEM field. Though STEM wasn’t always on her radar, Terzian had helped the not-for-profit association raise donations in the past. Without forcing young learners down the STEM path, Terzian said she wants to connect high schoolers, college students and recent college graduates who show promise with professional mentors as well as organizations willing to give out scholarships to both women and men. Sponsored mainly by National Grid as of mid-February, this STEM Goes Red initiative will also involve half-day conferences geared toward young women in the area. The committee at the helm will put effort into making the percentage of women in the STEM workforce “reflective of what society looks like” according to Terzian, who cited a statistic that only three out of every 100 female STEM degree holders secure a job in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. “I understand that when you go to study something, that may not always be the career that you go into, but specifically for STEM, that number needs to be higher,” Terzian said. “It’s an intimidating field when you don’t see yourself represented.”
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