Reinvented Magazine Issue No. 3

REINVENTED

#NoFilter An Interview with Dr. Jennifer Golbeck

TEAM CREDITS Editor in Chief Caeley Looney

CFO

Erin Mitchell

CMO

Lavanya Sharma Rachel Weeks

Writing Directors Alice Ao Aparna Rajesh Vilina Mehta Emily Miller

Creative Director Avika Patel

Finance

Madeline Feigles Palak Mehta

Operations Aly Trevino Merrill Keating Peyton Paulson

Marketing

Daniela Markazi Ria Vora

Writing

Abby Johnson Abigayle Peterson Aysia Torres Erin Robinson Jenn Toso Jessica Sage Madeleine Salem Meghana Krishna Sanjana Yeddula Sona Popat

Creative

Alice Liu Christine Ao Estrella Popoca Hariti Patel Megan Jacob Niamh Murphy

Publishing Marta Taulet

Issue No. 3 March 2020 In 2018, recent college graduate Caeley Looney realized the need for a magazine geared towards women in STEM. After recognizing the fact that a vast majority of media today focuses on makeup, fashion, and celebrities for young girls, Caeley set out to create a magazine that focuses on her passions: science, technology, engineering, and math. Thus, the idea for Reinvented Magazine was born.

After pitching the idea to the National Center for Women and Information Technology’s (NCWIT) Aspirations in Computing Facebook Group and receiving a tremendous response, a team of like-minded young women from all across the nation was formed and the project kicked off. The next year was full of exciting achievements and firsts for Reinvented Magazine, including a fully-funded Women You Should Fund crowdfunding campaign, exclusive interviews, achieving 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, and, of course, printing their first issue.

While most people know that there is a lack of women in STEM fields, most don’t understand how real this issue is. According to the National Girls Collaborative Project, women make up only 29% of the science and engineering workforce. That’s why our founder urges that, “in order to see a change in the professional world, we need to start at the beginning by showing our daughters, sisters, and friends female role models in STEM fields at a young age.”

Reinvented Magazine does exactly that. Our mission is to reinvent the general perception of women in STEM fields while inspiring interest in STEM for young women nationwide.

From sharing the stories and experiences of groundbreaking ladies in the field to reporting the latest news in science and technology, we hope to pave the way for future generations of women to become leading pioneers of STEM. We also want to ensure that everyone has access to our content, including girls in lowincome and rural areas without consistent access to computers. That’s why we set up our One-for-One program which allows us to donate one magazine for every one magazine bought.

The general notion of science, technology, engineering, and math as being predominantly masculine fields is something that has needed to change for a long time now, but there is only one way to truly change something - you need to reinvent it.

Ask Gloria

Stay connected with us

Gloria Kimbwala

Special Thanks Adafruit Natalie Hahn Sherry Huss Wogrammer

2 | TEAM CREDITS AND INFORMATION

EMAIL

info@reinventedmagazine.com

FACEBOOK

Reinvented Magazine

WEB

www.reinventedmagazine.com

INSTAGRAM

@reinventedmagazine

TWITTER

@reinventedmag

Letter from the Editor Dear Reader, Welcome back to Reinvented Magazine, round 3. Firstly, I want to give everyone the facts. Since our first issue, our magazine and this initiative have expanded exponentially. I’ve been asked a lot lately about how this magazine got started and where the idea came from, and I’m sure that you already know the story, but it was a small, yet powerful beginning. Since the release of our first issue in August, we have grown to have readers in 46 states and 10 countries and, honestly, those metrics are something I never thought I’d witness.

We have donated thousands of magazines to girls all over the world, and because of you, we get to continue strengthening our mission and pushing forward into the next steps of our journey.

Next, I want to talk to you a little bit about this issue in particular.

Issue 3 has set out to achieve one mission: to remind you that it’s okay to be yourself. I think that we can all unanimously agree that science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are awesome, and that women are supposed to be an integral part of each of these fields. But, just because we are kicking butt being scientists and engineers, doesn’t mean that that is the only thing that defines us. As women in STEM, we are allowed to be and do whatever we want to do. We are meant to push the limits in our fields and come home and do something completely different. I hope that this issue shows you that the only person who defines who you are is you.

So let’s get a little personal. How can I tell you something like that and not give you my definition? Sure, I am an aerospace engineer for the nine business hours of every weekday, but as you all know, I come home and I suddenly transform into the girl writing this letter, the Editor in Chief of Reinvented Magazine. And, honestly, both of these roles are great and I absolutely love having both be parts of what defines who I am - but it’s not everything. I, like our truly inspiring feature on Dr. Jen Golbeck this issue, am a dog mom. I have a service dog, named Charlie, and I just recently rescued a six-month-old Newfoundland puppy named Scout. I’m also a runner. And when I say I’m a runner, I don’t want anyone out there to think that I’m fast, because I absolutely am not. I am a terrible runner, but I love to do it, and to me, that is a huge part of who I am. I suffer from multiple mental illnesses, and I try to be an advocate for mental health awareness any chance I get. And lastly, one I think you all already know, I am an avid Netflix binger.

When I’m not reviewing articles or plotting orbits, I’m usually watching The Office, Parks and Recreation, or Brooklyn 99.

In the pages that follow you will read about Miss America, who truly exemplifies what it means to not be your “stereotypical woman in STEM,” a golden retriever-loving ultrarunner, and more. I hope that these stories remind you that women in STEM rarely only look like girls with lab coats on and their hair tied back, and inspire you to show more of yourself in everything that you do.

To Infinity & Beyond,

Caeley Looney Editor in Chief

3 | LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: CAELEY LOONEY

T

A

B

L

E

O

F

C O N T E N T S

5 Imposter Syndrome

9 STAR WARS

15 Everyday Changemakers

41 Science of Food

47 Fashion: Xena Workwear

31 Dr. Jen Golbeck

51 DIY: Collision Course!

OVERCOMING Imposter Syndrome When I was 14-years-old, I was elected to a leadership position with the Future Farmers of America, an organization dedicated to teaching the next generation of agriculturists.

While in this position, I routinely told myself it was because of luck that I was elected, and that I had barely managed to get the position.

When I was 17-years-old, I was accepted into my top university — Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University — for aerospace engineering. I told myself it was because they accept everyone, not because of my intelligence.

At 20-years-old, I received a co-op with Collins Aerospace and told myself it was because they had run out of candidates.

" It's time to beat imposter syndrome, allow yourself to bask in the glow of everything you have done, and finally feel deserving."

Today at 22-years-old, I still find myself thinking that I get good grades because I’m lucky, or certain positions because there was no one better and I was the last resort.

All my life, I have dealt with imposter syndrome - your own brain telling you that you’ve only succeeded because of luck, that you don’t deserve to be awarded something, or that you aren’t as incredible as your accomplishments show you are.

In fact, it is estimated that a large portion of people will deal with this at some point in their lives. Women in STEM are not immune to these thoughts either. Due to the low percentage of women in STEM fields, women tend to believe - and are also led to believe - that the only reason they received a job or promotion is because they are “good for diversity numbers.”

This very sentence has been expressed to me before when I’ve earned internships.

But guess what? You are deserving of all of your accomplishments and you have earned every single one of them, no matter how large or small.

It’s time to beat imposter syndrome, allow yourself to bask in the glow of everything you have done, and finally feel deserving. Here’s how you can do that.

Change Your View About Imposter Syndrome The main thing to realize about imposter syndrome is that it happens inherently. You’re not intending to think those thoughts — they just happen naturally. When these thoughts do happen, be sure to not punish yourself or feel bad about having them. Instead, try taking a moment to process the thought itself.

Think about why you are having the thought. Is it because you feel that you aren’t putting enough time into a project or assignment? Try logging how many hours you are spending on the project. More likely than not, you are putting in plenty of time. Seeing the quantitative value of the work you are putting in will help you feel like you are doing enough. Is it because you feel you don’t deserve something? Take a step back and think about the requirements you had to fulfill in order to get to where you are with that job or award.

5 | OVERCOMING IMPOSTER SYNDROME

Don't Compare Yourself to Others Only to Yourself

you or vice versa, surround yourself with people who lift up your accomplishments and celebrate even the tiniest of achievements— because after all, they are still successes.

Take Time for Yourself

One of the worst things to do, that impacts both your current and future thoughts, is comparing yourself to other people.

Here are the facts: there is always going to be someone smarter than you. Or someone who has held more leadership positions. Or someone who gets better grades than you.

However, it doesn’t matter how someone else got there. The fact of the matter is that they got there. Don’t compare your path to theirs.

Think about your own accomplishments and compare yourself to where you were at one year, five years, even ten years ago! I bet what you will find is that you have grown in so many different ways. It could be academically or professionally. Maybe it’s how you handle the different situations that life throws at you. Take the time to reflect upon the past. Look at your own path and see the growth. By doing this, you will be able to appreciate everything you have gone through and recognize it as an accomplishment.

This is probably the one piece of advice that I’ve struggled the hardest with over the years. I was always the “Superwoman!”

— you know, the girl that can do everything, is willing to do everything, puts in a ridiculous amount of overtime, and is always in the office early. I was getting burnt out again and again while I was trying to accomplish everything. When I was feeling burnt, the worst of my imposter syndrome thoughts occurred.

Setting boundaries for yourself and whatever you are working on is vital to staying fresh and not experiencing imposter syndrome. Only work overtime when it is 100% needed. If you come in early, make sure you’re leaving when you’re supposed to (if it’s possible — sometimes it’s not!). Accept additional assignments -- but only if they won’t put you behind or put too many things on your plate all at once.

Surround Yourself with the Right People

"You are deserving of all of your accomplishments and you have earned every single one of them, no matter how large or small."

6 | OVERCOMING IMPOSTER SYNDROME

I stopped working at

Try It Now

One thing people take for granted often is the environment they are in. Think of a plant. If you ignore a plant, and refuse to nourish or take care of it, what is going to happen? It’s going to fail to survive. People — including yourself — are the same way. You need people that are going to pay attention to you and nourish you with positivity. Instead of surrounding yourself with people who constantly compare themselves to

I started working at

I have been working for hours

Imposter syndrome is a hard battle to overcome. It takes convincing your harshest critic - yourself - that you are worthy of where you are and everything you have accomplished. The number one thing to do when trying to beat this problem is to be patient with yourself. A change in your thoughts won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.

Sophie Zaccarine, Sounding Rocket Aerospace and Electrical Engineering Intern at NASA: “I deal with it by remembering that everyone around me (even the most ‘impressive’ people) are battling it as well. I learned this term at NASA — where you might think it would never be brought up, but it was discussed all the time!

I know that if my colleagues there, who are some of the most brilliant people I know, are battling it, then certainly most everyone else is too.”

Jamie Groh, @AlteredJamie (Twitter): “I made a decision to follow a passion. I always have to stop and realize that opportunities are the payoff for hard work and remember to avoid comparing my successes to others.”

Jenn Toso, Operations Staff Member of Reinvented Magazine: “I [try to] surround myself with positive people - [this] helps, as well [as] internal pep talks!”

Michelle Nadeau, Student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University: “I found looking at my resume or LinkedIn page helps remind me of all the cool stuff I've done. Also, comparing my current and an old resume reminds [me] I've done a lot recently and that I'm not just resting on old laurels.”

Peyton Paulson, Director of Community Engagement of Reinvented Magazine: “If I act confident and show honesty when I don't know something, I can learn and get better! It's more about being confident in your ability to try and learn! I guess at the end of the day, realizing we are all human and that everyone has a bit of imposter syndrome has helped me overcome it. I realize that it's all in my head and that while we are human, we all have the power to control our thoughts. Negativity can be destructive, but positivity is contagious!”

BY: NATALIE HAHN

7 | OVERCOMING IMPOSTER SYNDROME

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Star Wars is one of the most iconic and globally-recognized franchises of all time. From Anakin Skywalker to young Jedi Luke to the curious Rey of Jakku, the universe of Star Wars has left a multigenerational impact on adults and kids alike.

These movies are renowned for exploring scientific ideas and principles that have yet to be created in the real world, and offer some interesting arguments for what a future in space could look like for humans. The development of a fantastical world full of interesting characters and aliens requires a lot of imagination as well as a lot of work. After the recent release of Episode IX: the Rise of Skywalker, Reinvented had the opportunity to reveal some of the work that went into making these movies with Lucasfilm and some of their associates.

Women Who Make It Happen Part of creating a fictional universe in a movie involves making those fictional elements seem real to the viewers.

10 | THE MAKING OF STAR WARS

Sarah Trop of Industrial Lights & Magic (ILM), a division of Lucasfilm, helps make this possible on a day to day basis. “I spend my time developing tools and fixing problems for artists so they can do their jobs to the best of their ability,�

Trop says.

As a Pipeline Technical Director for ILM, Trop helps the artists who add effects and scenery to the film assemble their work with advanced tools that compile them into the shots that are seen in the movie. During the production of a movie, a visual effects pipeline is the sequence of events that take place from shots taken on set to what is visible on-screen.

Also working at ILM is Colette Mullenhoff, a research and development engineer, who helps create software tools to meet the preferences of the artists. Her work has been used in several movies, including The Matrix sequels, some of the Pirates of the Carribean sequels, and Rango, since her start in the movie industry 17 years ago. She was also the first woman from ILM to win an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Technical Achievement Award in 2015.

How It Works After filming, the shots are passed onto teams of artists and developers to create the final product. This involves many layers and careful sequencing. Various softwares require translation across files, and Trop works to help deliver those translations in various formats. She worked on The Rise of Skywalker to help develop the incredible and realistic scenes seen in several shots. For instance, she helped develop a few of the starfighter action shots at the end of the film and background scenery.

“I spent a good portion of my year working on a new texturing integration pipeline,” she explains. “It allows us to show the same material and textures in different software packages — which is something we weren’t able to do before — so that two artists can be working on the same shot in different software packages.”

Trop and her team used this method throughout the film on action shots involving star destroyers and background scenery. It was a new, unique addition to the production of a Star Wars film that had been developed over a long period of time to create imagery that had not been used before in film. In addition to developing tools like this, Trop also worked on creating tools that would help artists receive feedback on their work.

“It’s really important that our artists are able to get quick and effective feedback from supervisors and the director, in this case J.J. Abrams.” This feedback helps

shape the direction of the movie to best fit the director’s vision.

Trop helped support the reviews of the supervisors and the director by using tools to deliver the feedback notes to their respective artist. She noted that this system was very productive, particularly in regards to the suggestions of the director, as the system allowed the artists to “review the exact things he said about exact frames.”

During the production of the movie, Trop also worked on asset turntable development. Asset turntables allow artists and developers to see how the shapes and texture look in different lighting. “Before we can do any fancy lighting or animation and using the real stuff that ends up drawing your attention on the screen, we have to make sure our fictional characters, if they are creatures, for example, in CG [Computer Generated], are the way we want them to look,” she explains. These crucial tools are

11 | THE MAKING OF STAR WARS

vital to a complex scene with various textures and focuses within the shot. The assets are required to be adaptable when they are applied in order to meet the various conditions of several scenes.

Mullenhoff writes the interface using C++ and works to meet the requests of the artists. “Every tool is so different,” Mullenhoff explains. “Sometimes it’s really ‘math-y’ and you’ve got to create an algorithm for what happens when you run the tool, or sometimes you have to write several of these [tools] because my artists love options.”

Bending Reality Trop claims, “It’s our job to make things that aren’t real, that are very fake, feel real to the moviegoer.”

’

"It s our job to make things that

’

aren t real, that are very fake, feel real to the moviegoer.

”

"Every tool is so different.

’

Sometimes it s really

‘math-y’

and

’

you ve got to create an algorithm for what happens when you run the tool, or sometimes you have to write several of these [tools] because my artists love options.

This process is completed by several artists using techniques to manipulate the camera view and the elements that will appear on-screen. The director often often chooses which details need to be added or deleted to make shots more realistic. “If you throw away the rules of the world that people understand, things no longer feel like they could exist,” she adds. “We try to keep things as grounded as we can in terms of physics and gravity.”

”

A dynamic film platform such as Star Wars calls for various technical applications and complex planning in order to create an effective and smooth storyline. “We are always trying to improve on the software and the tools we have for our artists because technology is constantly changing,” says Trop. “As we go along sometimes things change and we get some shots and are like ‘Okay, well we need a tool to do this one specific thing in this shot that we haven’t done before.’”

“We

are always trying to improve

on the software and the tools we have for our artists because technology is constantly changing,

”

Every department has a specific set of tools used to develop shots in the movie. Trop works to make sure that all of the tools are compatible with one another and that the files can be easily transferred. She compares them to puzzle pieces that eventually get put together to create the final product.

“Compositing is essentially the art of taking all the pieces and layering them on top of one another and making sure they fit together.” The end of the compositing process becomes the very shots seen on the big screen.

12 | THE MAKING OF STAR WARS

Sarah Trop

A challenge of keeping things realistic is also keeping them creative in movie production. Star Wars involves a lot of creatures and ideas that are not physically possible but have to seem possible in the movie. “At the end of the day, it’s about the way it feels and the way it looks and not the actual rules,” Trop explains. She uses the Orbac, the creatures that resemble horses, as an example. She explains that they are not horses but they need to move in a way that is similar to horses - but if the director feels as though the type of movement is wrong, it can be changed to better fit the vision the film is trying to convey.

“At the end of the day, it’s about the way it feels and the way it looks and not the actual rules”

Colette Mullenhoff

A lot of hard work and collaboration is put into the production of a film. From the lighting to the smallest of special effects, it all comes together to add detail to shots that can shape our concepts of reality. Without the hard work and creativity of computer scientists such as Trop and Mullenhoff, fans would not have the same moviegoing experience, and a story such as Star Wars wouldn’t inspire the same curiosity towards ideas of the future and space exploration. Although the beloved saga has come to an end, movies that follow in the coming years will develop technologies and effects to further bend the boundaries of reality and the human mind.

All photos in this article were provided by Lucasfilm.

BY: ABBY JOHNSON

13 | THE MAKING OF STAR WARS

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CHANGEMAKERS

HOW

Lanie Dixon IS USING HER PASSION FOR PEOPLE TO CHANGE THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE IN THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM Lanie Dixon / Director of Performance Excellence and Patient Experience / St. Joseph Mercy Oakland

The Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program [DAPCEP] is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect Detroit public school students to some of the best STEM educational opportunities in Michigan. Beginning in the late 70s, the initiative has partnered with several community-based organizations and eight Michigan universities. It has expanded to create renowned class experiences for more than 8,000 youth, one of whom happened to be Lanie Dixon.

“My mother heard about the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program on the radio, and she immediately went to sign me up. I never formally identified engineering as my career path, because I was just a sophomore in high school, but I was always fascinated by math and science. I was that kid growing up that took everything apart and put it back together.”

After initially being put on the wait-list as an alternate

16 | EVERYDAY CHANGEMAKERS: LANIE DIXON

for the DAPCEP, Lanie received a call of admission one week before its start date. Soon after, she found herself on Michigan State University’s campus, ready to spend the next three weeks taking classes in not only coding, but web design, biology, and cultural studies, like African American literature.

" What the program did for me was open my eyes to the possibilities of what I could do. I liked visualizing how I could take what I learned and channel it towards helping others.”

Upon enrolling at the college of engineering at the University of Michigan, Lanie initially felt unprepared for the rigorous curriculum.

“College for me was really about survival, but my pride wouldn’t let me give up.”

With a combination of dedication and grit, Lanie graduated, however, throughout her studies and professional exposure to computer engineering, she had an important realization.

“While working as a computer engineer, I would come into work when it was dark, leave when it was dark, and mostly code all day without much interpersonal interaction. I realized I was much more social than that, and I wanted to make a direct impact on the people I was working with. Around that time, the combination of engineering and healthcare was taking off, and I saw my opportunity to honor my love of math and science while also helping people.”

“It

is hard work, but

when I see

’

how I made a difference in a mom s

’

life who s been sitting with her daughter for 12 hours with an earache or getting the chance to sit down with a family and make sure they are taken care of, I genuinely live for that.

”

This desire to connect with people more personally spearheaded her to switch majors and instead, earn her Bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Operations Engineering.

Lanie’s realization led her to several local healthcare and health insurance organizations and eventually to St. Joseph Mercy Oakland hospital where she is currently the Director of Performance Excellence and Patient Experience. There, she has harnessed not only her data analysis and operational talents, but her genuine and warm-hearted spirit to manage a team of nurses, engineers, and physicians.

“My job requires me to overcome the hurdles of budgets, scheduling, and operational structure in the hospital by maintaining an impeccable sense of organization and order.”

Lanie is responsible for representing the patients’ voice in every project she leads, and to advocate for those that are directly affected by the hospital's operational processes. To do this, she has instituted a project review process that includes an evaluation by the patient-family advisory council, developed training sessions for residences on operating new technology such as ultrasounds and catheter insertions, and generated innovative ways to alleviate the everyday pain points for patients.

Lanie’s ability to give herself time to realize her calling and true purpose to serve others has ultimately made an impactful change in the lives of many patients.

It is hard work, but when I see how I made a difference in a mom’s life who’s been sitting with her daughter for 12 hours with an earache or getting the chance to sit down with a family and make sure they are taken care of, I genuinely live for that.

BY: JASMINE JOHNSON

Wogrammer has been acquired by AnitaB.org, a social enterprise that supports women in technical fields, the organizations that employ them, and the academic institutions training the next generation. We proudly join the AnitaB.org/365 suite of programs which are fueling the movement to achieve intersectional gender equity in the global technical workforce by 2025 and will continue to amplify diverse voices of women in technology around the world.

17 | EVERYDAY CHANGEMAKERS: LANIE DIXONI

Jacqueline Sotraidis PROPULSION ENGINEER Following your dreams can be a challenging path, but rocket scientist Jacqueline Sotraidis has made her way into the aerospace industry as a rocket propulsion engineer. Driven by a passion for problem-solving, Jacqueline found her calling working for Virgin Orbit on a project called LauncherOne, a unique method of launching rockets off the wing of an airplane.

“My favorite part of my job is that I get to design things that will go into space,” explains Jacqueline. “It makes me take a step back on the stressful, overwhelming days and remember that what I’m working on is pretty freaking cool.”

Jacqueline was fascinated with engineering from a young age, playing with LEGOs and blocks and assembling them in various configurations. She expressed her early interest in design by studying how parts fit together to create a final product. “As I got older, I realized the power that math and science had to enable more interesting and complicated designs,” she explains. Jacqueline began to look into engineering as a way to bring her blueprints to life using science and mathematics. She ultimately decided to pursue aerospace engineering, because to Jacqueline, “there wasn't

18 | EVERYDAY CHANGEMAKERS: JACQUELINE SOTRAIDIS

a more interesting challenge than designing something that flies, or goes all the way into space.”

Jacqueline found a new home for herself at the University of Minnesota as she began her studies. Here, she joined the school’s rocketry group where she had the opportunity to learn more about the industry and develop her goals for the future. “Through this group, I learned good design practices, how to turn wrenches and build real hardware, how to work with a large group of people and stay organized, and even important skills that weren’t taught in my classes such as CAD modeling,” she says. Because of her experiences with the club, Jacqueline landed two internships at Virgin Orbitand she was eventually hired as a full-time Virgin Orbit employee.

Though her official title at Virgin Orbit is a “Propulsion Design and Analysis Engineer,” Jacqueline works more on structural design of engines and the thrust of the rocket itself.

She follows all of her assigned parts through their life cycles and is in charge of fixing any problems she might encounter.

Once parts are complete, Jacqueline creates prototypes and subjects them to testing. After that, her parts are cleared for flight and are integrated onto a rocket!

Virgin Orbit is focused on finding unique methods of launching satellites into orbit. Through their LauncherOne project, for example, the company is now capable of launching a rocket after it is airdropped by an airplane.

“Everyone at Virgin Orbit is working on our LauncherOne project, which is a rocket that is launched off of the wing of a 747 aircraft, and carries satellites into orbit around the Earth,” Jacqueline says. “It’s a really exciting time at the company!”

Jacqueline has been working on LauncherOne since it was a part of Virgin Galactic, a sister company of Virgin Orbit.

“Both Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit were appealing to me because they fell into the “New-Space” category of aerospace companies, which is known for a fun, fast-paced work environment, taking risks, and trusting young engineers with big responsibilities.”

Being a female in an engineering field comes with many challenges—but Jacqueline has found rewards even in the face of sexism. She mentions there have been multiple occasions during which the phrase “because you are a girl” has been tossed around in her career. “What I have learned from these encounters, and others like them, is that they stem from an insecurity in the other person,” she explains.

“Recognizing this behavior is a powerful tool to maintain your self-confidence and ignore or confront people who act this way.”

Jacqueline believes that the future is full of STEM challenges that are going to make Earth a better place to live. In the dynamic fields of technology, science, and mathematics, there is a never-ending demand for innovation. Jacqueline suggests that everyone pursuing these challenges and demands should live life the way they want to live. “My biggest piece of advice to girls interested in STEM is to remain confident in yourself, which can sometimes be

difficult. Work hard, get involved, and never let a guy pull a wrench out of your hands. It’s important to have an identity beyond just ‘engineer’ or ‘scientist.’ I’m a propulsion engineer, but I also identify as a baker, basketball player, and VR videogame fanatic. There’s more to you than just your career!” I’m a propulsion engineer, but I also identify as a baker, basketball player, and VR videogame fanatic. There’s more to you than just your career!”

"WORK HARD, GET INVOLVED, AND never let a guy pull a wrench

OUT OF YOUR HANDS."

BY: ABBY JOHNSON

19 | EVERYDAY CHANGEMAKERS: LINDSEY CROSS 19 | EVERYDAY CHANGEMAKERS: JACQUELINE SOTRAIDIS

CODING FOR KIDS: GRECHEN HUEBNER’S JOURNEY TO DEVELOPING KODABLE When she started college as a communications major, Grechen Huebner never dreamed she’d have a career in STEM education. Seven years, hundreds of hours of hard work, and one educational game later, Huebner and her business partner, Jon Mattingly, are now revolutionizing elementary computer science (CS) education.

Although coding is incredibly widespread today, Huebner was unfamiliar with the field until she reached college.

Before that point, Huebner wasn’t entirely comfortable with technology, and she felt she was “bad” at computer-related activities. She didn’t immerse herself in technical projects due to a lack of programming exposure.

A college internship helped her finally cross the threshold into computing. Huebner had started the internship under the assumption that she would only be needed to design a website for the company. However, when a fellow intern backed out of the project, the company asked her if she would be able to program the website as well. Although

20 | EVERYDAY CHANGEMAKERS: GRECHEN HUEBNER

she had no previous coding experience, she told them that she could learn and continued interning with the company, picking up basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills along the way.

Though she became proficient in programming by the end of her internship, Huebner found that programming was initially difficult for her to learn. While she had the opportunity to take a coding class in high school, she had decided against enrolling in the course since she would have been the only girl in the class — something she admits she regrets.

These early experiences with coding stuck with Huebner throughout her time in college. Approaching the end of her college career, she began toying with the idea of teaching coding to kids at a younger age—up until that point, coding had been seen as something only for adults. Most adults who were coding had only been exposed to it in college,and even though there were some programming classes in high

schools, it wasn’t emphasized. After some research, Huebner found that children start thinking logically—the main skill needed for coding—as early as three years old. This meant that coding could be introduced to kindergarten students—kids five and six years old.

As graduation grew nearer, Huebner began thinking about her interests in coding and working with kids. After talking to her friends with children, she discovered that they wished their kids could learn to code as early as possible. Pursuing a career in coding would also allow Huebner to give younger girls the ability to feel comfortable programming -- something a young Huebner would have greatly valued. “I’ve always loved working with kids,” Huebner recalls, “being around kids makes me feel like a kid at heart.” Huebner’s interests seemed to align, and the idea for Kodable was born.

Huebner created Kodable to teach children the basics of coding. In order to engage children, the program’s developers decided to make Kodable a game, as it would be exciting as well as educational.

In the beginning, the Kodable team was only Huebner and Mattingly — two entrepreneurs with a fantastic idea, but little experience with game design and development. The first prototype of Kodable took about four months to complete after the initial brainstorming process. Huebner was not a game designer nor game artist by training, so she had to teach herself to design and build the game on her own. Creating even the main character of the game, the Kodable Fuzz, proved difficult. Since she had no experience in animation, she knew that the character of the game couldn’t have arms or legs, because she didn’t know how to animate limbs. After going through dozens of doodles, Huebner drew the nowbeloved Fuzz, partly out of frustrated scribbles. The Fuzz was perfect, as the only part that had to be animated was his facial expressions.

Huebner also wanted to focus on making the game appealing for all genders. In preliminary research, she found that most available coding resources were being marketed towards boys, with graphics and games that appealed to “boy” interests (like cars or dinosaurs). She then set out to design a game that was gender-neutral. By creating a narrative and designing many different fuzzes, students of all genders were able to connect to the relatable, cute characters and the world they lived in.

“All the kids can identify with their own fuzz,” Huebner says; this makes the game more personal and engaging.

Another challenge Huebner and the Kodable team faced was a lack of standards on which to base their educational tool.

Since Kodable was something intended to be used in classrooms, the team wanted to ensure that the game was

BY: EMILY MILLER

teaching the right concepts. Since organizations within the computer science industry were taking too long to develop elementary CS standards, the Kodable team took it upon themselves to develop these guidelines. The team hired a group of CS experts, including school teachers and a CS professor at Stanford, to develop CS standards that included concepts like computational learning and logical thinking.

The Kodable team was also sure to incorporate standards like social and emotional learning strategies, which emphasized the importance of communication skills within the game so that the students would develop far more than technical skills through Kodable. “It was exciting to create a resource that Kodable could share with teachers looking for guidance,” Huebner said. Many educators don’t have a background in CS, so it was important to the Kodable developers that they created a way for teachers to make sense of CS education through the familiar format of educational standards.

Huebner hopes that Kodable will be used in elementary schools across the U.S. She believes that “it is important that the fundamentals of coding are taught just like the fundamentals of math or reading.” Technology is moving quickly, so Huebner feels it is the duty of the educational system to prepare the next generation for their roles in society. In the next 15 to 20 years, all jobs will likely involve coding or working with someone else who codes, so it is essential that all children become literate in coding as early as possible, which is what Kodable is helping to do.

The years Huebner spent creating Kodable were worth it.

When she saw the first children to test the product actually using something she had designed and speaking in “if-then” statements, she knew that Kodable was going to be something incredible -- and she was right. As of August 2019, over 20 million teachers, parents, and kids have used Kodable, and the company is only growing. Soon, Kodable could be used in every classroom across America!

Huebner’s final message is for those wanting to undertake large projects, but feel inexperienced. “You don’t have to know everything to do big, exciting things if you are willing to learn,” Huebner says.

..."You don't have to know everything to start something."

21 | EVERYDAY CHANGEMAKERS: GRECHEN HUEBNER 19 | REFLECTIONS ON PRIDE: AN INTERVIEW WITH LYNN CONWAY

BRIDGET FREY HER JOURNEY TO THE FOREFRONT OF THE TECH INCLUSIVITY MOVEMENT Bridget Frey’s passion for computers blossomed early. When she was five years old, her father hauled a bulky box home one day after work. Inside was an Apple IIe, the 1983-release personal computer featuring 64 KB of RAM, colored graphics, and the ability to type in lower-case letters. A brand-new IIe retailed at over $1300 and weighed nearly twelve pounds. As an appliance mechanic, Bridget’s father had a natural fascination for machines. Together, he and his daughter pored through the manual and began uncovering the computer’s potential.

As Bridget grew older, her fascination with computers and software grew. She learned to program in BASIC and Pascal and joined her high school’s programming team. Her talent caught the attention of Harvard University, where she won multiple scholarships and graduated magna cum laude in 1999 with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science. Today, Bridget is Chief Technology Officer of the Seattle-based technologypowered real estate brokerage, Redfin. The company develops software for both real estate agents and consumers and employs agents full-time to help people buy and sell homes.

Having climbed her way up the corporate ladder, Bridget

22 22 || EVERYDAY EVERYDAY CHANGEMAKERS: CHANGEMAKERS: MEGHA BRIDGETJAIN FREY

considers it her moral responsibility to help deconstruct barriers keeping historically underrepresented groups from accessing equal opportunities in the tech industry. She calls herself a “diversity mechanic,” and she’s no stranger to the isolation that can accompany being “the only one of your kind” in the workplace. Upon joining Redfin in 2011, she was the only woman on the Seattle-based engineering team.

Today, Redfin is comprised of one of the most gender-diverse teams in tech, and productivity and output is at an all-time high. Her approach to understanding the mechanics of diversity was inspired by her father. “My dad would often encounter problems in his work he didn’t know how to solve right off the bat. He would just enjoy the process of figuring things out instead of focusing on how big the problem was,” Bridget says. “I’ve tried taking the same approach to diversity. We might not understand all the nuances and structural factors behind the disparity, but we can break down the problem into pieces we can work with and celebrate small victories.”

When filling technical roles, Redfin values potential over existing technical skills. Though a basic grasp of software is necessary, Redfin provides on-the-job training to help employees develop their skills. Through this route, the

company has access to talent often overlooked by companies with a more traditional recruiting approach. What some candidates may lack in formal education can be made up for in an eagerness to learn and a strong work ethic. Bridget notes, “Redfin is a very data-driven company, so we’re always analyzing performance. We’ve found that employees get promoted at around the same time frames whether or not they come from a more traditional technical background.”

Moral obligations aside, the data doesn’t lie – cultivating a diverse employee base has paid off for Redfin. During the fiveyear period in which Redfin transitioned from a technical team with virtually no women to one that’s over one-third female, the company amassed millions in additional revenue.

Bridget explains on a Redfin blog post that diversity is not merely “an end in itself, but a means to an end” in creating a team equipped to handle broader challenges than its competitors. “Ultimately, I’m a capitalist - I’m always looking for ways to increase our bottom line and gain an edge over our competitors,” she explains. “Diversity creates a win-win situation.”

Bridget also touched on female retention in tech – particularly after starting families, women struggle to maintain work-life balance. A study by the National Center for Women & Information Technology reports the attrition rate for women ten years into a tech-related career is over 50 percent.

As the mother of two middle-school boys, Bridget knows the challenges of parenthood well. Redfin works to accommodate the needs of parents by offering paid parental leave, flexible schedules and creating a culture of open conversation between management and employees. Many employers, Bridget says, make the mistake of focusing exclusively on issues like maternity leave without considering how parental demands change, often unpredictably, over time once a parent returns to work. “What my kids need from me now is very different from what they needed when they were younger,” Bridget says. “It’s important for employers to evolve in how they provide support.”

Flexibility was critical to Bridget’s success. She worked from home for about four years when her sons were young, contracting for Lithium Technologies, a San Francisco-based software firm. Bridget was able to successfully manage large teams of engineers remotely without sacrificing lunches and play dates with her children. When she eventually decided to return to an office, Bridget reached out to former colleague and Redfin CEO, Glenn Kelman. While negotiating an offer, Bridget pushed for a schedule that offered her enough flexibility to pick up and drop off her kids at daycare. Though the two were able to settle on an arrangement, Bridget is aware many working parents don’t have the same

BY: MEGHANA KRISHNA

opportunities. “Glenn and I had known each other for years and he was familiar with my work ethic, so we were able to come to an agreement,” she notes. “There are a lot of structural reasons why many parents don’t have as much choice, but I think it’s necessary for people who’ve achieved some balance to share our stories.”

Despite the flexibility, Bridget admitted to sometimes having felt like she was “on a treadmill” when her kids were younger, struggling to balance household duties with her husband, who has a demanding career of his own. “We needed to have honest conversations about whose stress level was higher and how to fairly distribute the load,” she says. Excel spreadsheets were the couple’s method of choice to divide labor. “As an engineer, I’m all about spreadsheets!” she laughs. Choosing the right company to work for in the first place is also paramount in quelling unnecessary stress: “Look at more than just the schedules or perks of a job, and really understand what a company’s product is and how they make money. This is what you’re going to spend the majority of your time working on, so connecting with the company’s mission is key.”

Though Redfin has been on the front lines of the tech inclusivity movement, Bridget says there’s much more work to be done. Making tech more female-friendly is only one step - Redfin is also focused on recruiting more underrepresented minorities and fostering a culture where all employees feel welcome. As she approaches her nine-year anniversary at Redfin, she plans to continue mentoring employees striving to become leaders. She’s excited to keep advocating for women’s issues in tech and feels her work at the company is far from over. “Some days I feel like we’re just getting started!

We’ve been on such an incredible journey but there’s so much more to do to fulfill our mission, so I think I’m going to be doing this for a while.”

23 | EVERYDAY CHANGEMAKERS: BRIDGET FREY

Daniela Markazi AN UNDERDOG'S SUCCESS STORY It’s December 20th, 2019, and over a thousand pairs of eyes are on soon-to-be graduate Daniela Markazi. As she steps up to the podium, Daniela makes history as the first-ever student speaker for the University of Illinois’s College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences’ graduation ceremony. She speaks of first dates and sustainable energy, of travels abroad and tough physics classes, of fond memories and robotics engineering. She speaks of nostalgia for the past and excitement for the future. “We are turning a new chapter in our lives,” she tells the crowd. “We can be inspired to improve life by improving technology, agriculture, and science. We, as future leaders, will play a pivotal role in making this happen!”

about STEM. But her passion, which wasn't shared by many girls at her school, and her natural brilliance made her an outcast. At times, Daniela even found herself as the target of bullying. “I was pushed down the stairs by a group of girls in high school, and they laughed at me as my coffee spilled all over my books and backpack,” she reveals.

Daniela has achieved much in her life. She won the prestigious NCWIT Aspirations in Computing National Award and the Knights of St. Patrick Award, an honor bestowed to nine of UIUC’s top engineering students. But it was no easy feat—Daniela’s journey to the top was a rocky uphill climb.

In spite of it all, Daniela was determined to persevere and let nothing get in the way of her love of STEM. She found solace in high school robotics, as she co-founded her school’s FTC robotics club. Under her leadership, Daniela’s high school robotics club became the largest in the world, and her own personal team made it to two world championships. She also started elementary school robotics teams, inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers. In school, Daniela was determined to take every single computer science course offered, becoming the first student at her school ever to do so. “I loved computer science so much that I would skip lunch in order to take extra classes!” she laughs. “It’s crazy now that I think about it.”

Years before she’d take the stage to represent her hundreds of classmates, Daniela was just a young student, passionate

In 2015, Daniela began studying agricultural and biological engineering at UIUC. Here, she was able to combine her love

24 | EVERYDAY CHANGEMAKERS: DANIELA MARKAZI

of computer science, biology, and robotics. It was difficult at first—Daniela admits that she was intimidated when she first started college. “The classes were huge, and I was surrounded by so many people I didn’t know! It didn’t help that a majority of freshman engineering courses were weedout classes, and there were barely any girls in my classes.”

Daniela was required to create a project for an agricultural engineering class — and with years of robotics experience under her belt, she knew that she wanted to build a robot to complete important farming tasks. To her dismay, her allmale teammates, intent on earning an easy grade by researching robots and churning out a simple poster, refused to listen to her ideas. “Every time I brought up an idea, it was immediately shut down,” Daniela explains. “My teammates kept trying to convince me that all my ideas were going to fail.”

"My teammates kept trying to convince me that all my ideas were going to fail.”

Daniela knew that she had a great idea, so she was determined to stick with it. Her teammates eventually acquiesced and apologized, and they all set out to bring Daniela’s idea to life. Daniela taught her teammates about 3D printing, Arduinos, and programming in C and Python—all skills that she’d picked up in high school robotics. Their final creation was an Agrobot, a robot that functioned just like an

Agrobot

BY: ALICE AO, APARNA RAJESH, VILINA MEHTA

agricultural farming machine, avoiding any objects in its path. “Our professor was shocked by the final product we were able to create,” she says. “To this day, the poster we made showcasing our robot is still displayed in the engineering building, and people still talk about the robot I created!” Ultimately, in a class of dozens of students, Daniela’s project won first place.

Throughout her time at UIUC, Daniela found immense success despite her initial setbacks. For three years, she created and taught her own class, ABE397: Mobile and Website Development, which was practically unheard of for undergraduate students. She worked at John Deere as a robotics engineer, long before graduation. She graduated early with a dual degree in agricultural and biological engineering and a minor in natural resource conservation.

She’s now pursuing her Ph.D. in informatics at UIUC. Today, as Vice President of Reinvented, Daniela is working to ensure that girls around the world know that they belong in STEM. Her advice? “Speak up and use your voice,” she says.

“It’s important to share your opinions, aim towards your goals, and muster up the courage to speak up!”

" Speak up and use your voice.It’s important to share your opinions, aim towards your goals, and muster up the courage to speak up!"

25 | EVERYDAY CHANGEMAKERS: DANIELA MARKAZI

CAMILLE SCHRIER

Armed with a lifelong passion for science and an impressive chemistry display, Camille Schrier was more than ready to dazzle the judges in the hope of becoming the next Miss America. The biochemistry and systems biology major, who is currently working towards a doctorate in pharmacy, captured both the Miss America 2020 crown and the hearts of everyone who watched with her riveting performance. In one burst of colored foam, Camille Schrier proved that Miss America could indeed be a scientist.

Camille secured her spot in Miss America history with a demonstration of the catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide, which young students may know as “Elephant’s Toothpaste.” Camille combined hydrogen peroxide, sodium iodide, soap, and food coloring to produce a fantastic foamy fountain. It was like a giant tube of toothpaste erupting out of the container — quite large and fit for an elephant!

they were also excellent training grounds for professional presentation techniques. Contestants like Camille had to become proficient in public speaking, personal communication, and presentation in order to succeed.

Before the new rules and regulations of Miss America 2.0 were instated, Camille could not envision herself wearing the famous Miss America crown. Historically, the Miss America pageant highlighted a candidate's physical appearance, as it involved swimsuit and evening gown competitions. Camille believed that a woman’s looks should never define a woman’s success, so she had never even felt the desire to compete in this pageant of all pageants. Everything changed with the introduction of Miss America 2.0. The swimsuit portion of the competition was replaced by a live interactive session with the judges, opening the door to opportunities that were never there before. With this shift in the pageant’s focus, Camille finally decided to compete for the 2020 title.

Miss America was not Camille’s first foray into pageantry.

Camille first stepped into the pageant world around the age of 14 and continued to compete well into her teens. For Camille, pageants were more than just scholarship opportunities;

"Anyone can be into science. You can dress up and still be [into] STEM." - Camille Schrier, Miss America 2020 Camille hopes her Miss America experience is helping to tear down the notion that a woman has to choose between femininity and a career in STEM. You can be both. A woman can be respected in her field whether she is wearing a lab coat or a skirt. The activity of the brain is not determined by

27 | CAMILLE SCHRIER

the outward physical appearance of the person. Women are fully capable of rocking eyeliner and a dress - while being the smartest person in the room.

STEM Ambassador Camille did not originally set out to become an ambassador for STEM; her involvement happened purely by coincidence.

Shortly after her captivating performance on Miss America, media outlets such as Good Morning America, Inside Edition, and CBS News started airing video footage of her experiment.

It did not take long before the coverage of Camille’s chemistry demonstration spread across various social media platforms, becoming a viral, overnight sensation. It was then that educators began approaching Camille in droves to speak at schools and tell her inspirational story in the hope of motivating children to explore and embrace science, technology, engineering, and math. It has been a whirlwind experience for Camille, but also an enjoyable one. Above all else, the message that Camille wants to spread to everyone — young and old alike — is that science is F-U-N! Camille Schrier is, if nothing else, always her authentic self. To Camille, being authentic means being true to oneself and never wavering from that point. It is about embracing one’s inner person and loving all of that person.The MerriamWebster dictionary defines authenticity as “staying true to one's own personality, spirit, or character.” Whether she is promoting STEM to kids

It is vital that girls can visualize themselves in STEM roles and, for that to take place, there needs to be an adequate amount of female STEM representation.

28 28 || WINTER CAMILLEREADING SCHRIERLIST

in a classroom, walking the stage as Miss America, or educating the public about the topics that are important to her, she is 100% herself and where she wants to be. Her message is consistent: everyone is in charge of their path. It is never too late to realize and set goals. STEM interest and discovery can occur at any age, and Camille is very adamant about inspiring people to discover where that journey may take them regardless of where they are currently in life.

Children should be supported and inspired, and adults should be encouraged to explore new interests.

Girls in STEM A STEM career as a female means moving forward without regard to societal boundaries. According to a 2017 survey by Microsoft, girls start demonstrating an interest in STEM at age 11, but that interest rapidly drops off by the time girls turn 15. Educators and parents have a small window to retain girls in STEM once they reach maximum interest, particularly as, at this stage in life, pressures to conform reach peak fervor. If young girls do not have support, especially in terms of role models, they may disregard a career in STEM entirely. It is vital that girls can visualize themselves in STEM roles and, for that to take place, there needs to be an adequate amount of female STEM representation. Women such as Camille help push the envelope and give girls someone to emulate at that

crucial time of self-discovery. Role models fill in the blanks for girls and allow them to imagine themselves in various careers, and a greater number of women in STEM careers means more girls exploring STEM. It can be math, science, technology, or engineering that sparks curiosity and leads girls down the STEM path.

If a girl envisions herself designing engines, hands-on experience with engines and guidance in modeling software should be made available to her. If she spends her free time creating and designing video games, that needs to be encouraged. Young girls need to be supported in the exploration of STEM courses so that their confidence level remains high in the event they encounter resistance from their peers or society.

Camille Schrier is giving women of all ages someone to look up to, and her message is clear —

"the STEM leaders of tomorrow will be confident, secure, sophisticated, smart, and undoubtedly female."

BY: JENN TOSO

29 | CAMILLE SCHRIER

An interview with Dr. Jennifer Golbeck

on Trust, Dogs, and Protecting Privacy While in the Public Eye

Photo By: Lucca Vaselli

evolution, but there are hidden downsides to the social networks that have become such an integral part of our lives.

And Dr. Jennifer Golbeck, an associate professor at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies and an expert in social networks, social media, privacy, and security on the web, has the research to back it up.

#Throwback Golbeck grew up in the eighties--a time where technology as we know it had just begun to burgeon. Despite computer science being quite novel at the time, she fell in love with it early on; in fact, the day she received her first computer was also the day she wrote her first program--allat the ripe age of six.

Golbeck continued engaging with computers while growing up, honing her programming skills and teaching herself how to make and design professional web pages throughout high school. "All of the signs were pointing me in the direction of pursuing computer science," Golbeck laughingly recalled, "but I actually spent most of my undergraduate years at the University of Chicago studying economics! It wasn't until the summer before my last year that I changed my major to CS. I ended up having to complete my entire CS degree in a single year… which I do not recommend, by the way."

#NoFilter With the recent advent of technology and social media, the world has become intricately interconnected. Sharing one's life on the internet is commonplace, people on opposite sides of the world can become best friends, and any bit of information can be accessed simply by saying, "Hey, Siri."

Society has, without a doubt, benefited from this digital

32 | #NOFILTER– DR.JEN GOLBECK

After graduating from the University of Chicago in 2001, Golbeck went on to pursue a PhD at the University of Maryland. There, she started to delve into the concept of social networks--interactive websites or applications that enable users to communicate with one another--as a focal point in her research. At the time, social networks were few and far in between, the most prominent one being MySpace in its most early stages. "The idea of social networks was really just emerging. No one was studying it yet," Golbeck explained, "And as cutting-edge researchers, our job is to discover these new things and help the world follow along with it."

Despite the uniqueness of the topic, Golbeck's research received a lot of pushback at the time due to social networks being criticized for "not being actual computer science."

What people might have failed to understand was that computer science isn't just about cold, hard algorithms; computer science is also about data: the interactions between data, and what the data implies about the interactions between people. There's a humanity to it--and social networks are the epitome of this intersection between data and man.

Status Update: Having Trust Issues Something that has been at the forefront of many of Golbeck's research projects has been the idea of trust--namely, how people can trust what they see online.

Golbeck's goal was to build algorithms that could give people recommendations on what they were interacting with online and analyze whether or not a source of online media was trustworthy. A similar and current application of such algorithms would be Netflix'ss recommendation feature, in which movies and shows are suggested to a user based on their watch history.

Golbeck is currently conducting research on such recommender systems. "I've noticed that many current recommender algorithms share a common purpose," she mused. "Take YouTube's ‘Recommended’ page, for example.

The question the algorithm tries to answer when offering videos is, 'what will make this person stay on Youtube for a longer period of time?' Whereas the question I'm trying to answer with my research is, 'what will make this person feel better? Instead of optimizing for engagement, how do we optimize for wellbeing?'"

According to Golbeck, the answer may lie in the development of an algorithm capable of measuring how a person feels about something, modeling their preferences, and recommending feel-good things, be it media that makes them

feel more informed about certain issues or content that gives them a greater sense of joy.

Golbeck didn't want to stop at developing recommender systems, though; she wanted to discover what could be found out about people, such as how willing they'd be to trust a stranger, if a computer learned a bit about them. In a 2013 TED Talk, Golbeck discussed the mechanisms that her lab had created that could predict an individual's characteristics, including political preference, gender, sexual orientation, religion, intelligence, how much they trust the people they know, and how strong those relationships are. Considering these predictions tackle such complex personality traits, one would think massive amounts of data had to be scrutinized in order for these mechanisms to work. In reality, all predictive data was produced after simply analyzing people's Facebook profiles.

Golbeck's work on predicting personality launched a new area of research investigating how to learn information about users. The findings would be used to recommend ads for people based on an intimately detailed profile constructed from analyzing their online data.

"Something I've noticed is that the motivation behind this type of research has changed from, 'let's help people find better movies or decide whether or not to trust this website!' to 'let's manipulate people into doing what we want!'," Golbeck shared. "It's become all about making consumers scared of some future that could be prevented if they bought this certain thing or voted for this specific policy. What could've been used to help individual people is something companies realized could make them a lot of money."

33 | #NOFILTER– DR. JEN GOLBECK

Caption This: An Unpretty Picture of the Reality of Privacy Instead of becoming discouraged about the direction her research has turned to, Golbeck has been driven to investigate further in regards to consumer privacy.

She recently conducted a mini-experiment involving an old iPhone with no cellular connection -- only WiFi. After turning off location access and setting up a VPN so that the phone appeared to be in New Orleans, Golbeck opened up Instagram and paid close attention to the ads she was being given. Turns out, despite her location-tracking prevention efforts, she was still getting ads for things right next to her house.

She concluded that the Instagram app somehow knew the phone was connected to the WiFi router at her house. It was information deduced from the hardware of the phone itself, not the IP address or anything else, that ultimately gave away her location.

"The big takeaway is that, unfortunately, a lot of the steps people take to protect their privacy, such as blocking sites from using trackers or using anonymous browsers, come with a lot of inconvenience, and companies often find ways around them… especially if there's money to be made," Golbeck said.

While Golbeck has begun to conduct deeper research regarding the question: are phones spying on us? by

attempting to track how phones listen to users and convert the gathered information into tailored advertisements, she believes that the problem of privacy can really only be solved through policy changes. Policies such as the European Privacy Law and the April 2019 California Privacy Protection Act grant European and Californian citizens respectively the right to control the data gathered about them, namely by telling companies to delete or reveal certain stored data.

Golbeck hopes that there will be further implementation of federal privacy regulation in the near future, as well as a trend for tech companies to innovate new ways of making money without exploiting consumer data.

Instafamous Golbeck hasn't just researched social networks--she's enthusiastically engaged with them and has gained quite a large audience in the process. One of her most popular accounts, appropriately branded 'The Golden Ratio,' features her five golden retrievers and their life adventures.

"How the Golden Ratio came to be is actually quite a funny story," Golbeck laughed, "I started the Golden Ratio account immediately after the 2016 presidential election. Everyone was just so angry, and I really just wanted to make a little corner of the Internet that featured my dogs and wholesome puppy content. We've amassed about 110k followers between Twitter and Instagram, so I guess it's worked out!"

As cute as they are, Golbeck's fantastic furry friends aren't the only things she highlights on social media. In addition to her personal page, she runs accounts on computer science, fitness, and the quirky mailboxes she finds while running around her neighborhood (which has about 3k followers!).

"I enjoy trying out new things and receiving feedback on them, so I think of social media as a platform to engage in fun little creative projects," Golbeck explains. "Some stick and some don't, but the fun part is that I can do whatever I want with them! Each project is something I genuinely want to spend time on, and it's a way for me to talk to a lot of different people as well."

Golbeck's advice to anyone interested in building a social media following is to be conscientious about what certain people want to engage with. It's the reason why she has separate accounts each spotlighting a different aspect of her life: someone looking for a puppy pick-me-up after a long work day might not be interested in reading about the latest social network research. It's all about not mixing things, knowing who your audience is, and tailoring your content to what they'd most like to see.

34 | #NOFILTER– DR. JEN GOLBECK

23 | EVERYDAY CHANGEMAKERS: CASSIDY WILLIAMS

Trending: #transformation, #awareness, #education Considering how integral social media has become to her life and career, Golbeck has enjoyed observing the evolutionary continuum of technology and communication over the past 20-30 years: from accessing information on clunky home computers and library desktops to now utilizing databases and search engines on mobile hand-held devices; and social media, being very image-driven, growing in tandem with developments like cell phones' camera quality gradually improving.

"At the core of everything, people want more information, interaction with that information, and interaction with each other, which is why hardware technology and what people are able to do online have evolved so interconnectedly," Golbeck explains. But despite social media being all about sharing information, Golbeck still cautions users to be careful about what they share. Even after earning such a large following, she still cares deeply about privacy and intentionally controls every bit of personal information she shares on the Internet – and she

BY: MADELEINE SALEM

encourages others to do the same. People are understandably wary of leaking addresses, pictures, location, etc., but the most creepily specific information is almost never explicitly shared information; instead, they're often deduced from analyzing the hardware, as demonstrated in Golbeck's previous experiment. Unfortunately, It's hard to implement preventative measures against these more subtle breaches of privacy because no one actually sees it happening.

"The best anyone can do right now is to educate themselves on how much this is really happening," Golbeck concedes.

"After all, It's hard to be outraged and want to demand change when you don't even know there's something wrong."

Some ways she suggests awareness be spread are for everyday users to (ironically) promote it on solid social media platforms, for companies who care about privacy to bring visibility to the issue, and for media outlets to ensure good coverage on intrusive happenstances regarding privacy breaches.

Follow for Follow To stay updated on Dr. Golbeck's research and gain further insight to her thoughts on social networks and privacy, follow @jengolbeck on Twitter. And if you want to have an adorable family of golden retrievers occasionally pop up on your feed, follow @thegoldenratio4 on Instagram.

35 | #NOFILTER– DR.JEN GOLBECK

HISTORICAL FIGURES: HEDY LAMARR PC: MGM/Clarence Bull

Hedy Lamarr is often recognized as one of the most famous actresses of her time. However, many people don’t know that Lamarr is also the brain behind some of the most important technology we use today. Born in the shadows of the first World War in Austria, Lamarr was known as Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler. As she grew up, people began to take notice of her beauty, which prompted her to take up a career in acting. She eventually fled to America because Jewish people in Austria were being targeted. In America, she changed her name and let her fame in Hollywood take off, starring in movies such as Ecstacy and Algerias. She went on to be voted in the top ten actresses of 1950.

Beyond her success in the film industry, there was a whole other side of Lamarr’s life that was hidden from the public eye. Many believed she was no more than a pretty face -but this was far from the truth. While inventing started out as merely a hobby for her, Lamarr’s natural talents for creating soon superseded her skills on the screen. Because she left school when she was 15, she received no formal training in subjects like chemistry and engineering; much of what she learned was through observation. She wanted to invent to help others, more specifically, the U.S. military.

36 | HISTORICAL FIGURES: HEDY LAMARR

In her early days of tinkering, she found it unfortunate that soldiers and workers could not drink cola. To fix this, she created a cube that fizzed when it was put in water, instantly providing consumers with refreshing beverages on the job.

The most significant of Lamarr’s inventions was created during World War II. At that time, the outcome of the war seemed to inevitably be in the hands of the Germans, who were using U-boats to jam radio signals for the Allies’ torpedos. To counteract this, Lamarr came up with the idea of frequency-hopping: moving signals across various frequencies rather than the same continuous one. This way, even if the frequency was jammed, the Germans could only damage a split second of it. Ultimately this idea was not used at the time, partly because people discredited female inventors; however, it did prove to be useful in the Cuban Missile Crisis almost 20 years later. This concept, known today as secure radio communications, was unheard of at the time. It is now used in almost all technology today, including Bluetooth and WiFi. In 1942, Lamarr had applied for a patent on this technology.

However, due to xenophobia being at an all-

Lamarr's Patent for a "Secret Communication System"

PC: Smithsonian Institution

time high, the patent was confiscated because of Lamarr’s status as an Austrian immigrant. She was never compensated for this patent during her lifetime, and the compensation she should have received is estimated to be worth nearly $30 billion today.

At the time, many people believed that she should stay out of hardware engineering because it was a “man’s job” and she was no more than a Hollywood actress. They suggested the best way for her to help the nation was to make appearances at charity events. While she did do this and raised lots of money, she didn’t let this stop her from pursuing her passions in engineering.

Many see Hedy Lamarr’s life as tragic because, to this day, many aren’t aware of her true accomplishments. However, she lived her life to the fullest in a time when women were seen as inferior to men and incapable of accomplishing the same groundbreaking feats. In the words of Lamarr herself:

“Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.”

BY: SANJANA YEDDULA

PC: MGM/Clarence Bull

37 | HISTORICAL FIGURES: HEDY LAMARR

MEDICAL MARVELS: ADVANCEMENTS IN CELL TECHNOLOGY All of these factors combine to produce epigenetic markers, Stem cell research and cell regeneration are incredibly which change the gene expression rather than the actual gene exciting breakthroughs in the medical field.

These encoded in the DNA. These markers restrict DNA expression in developments will open doors for new medical procedures, the cell and can be passed down to future generations — like neurological disorder treatment, heart and brain meaning the change completed in one cell will be present in recovery, and remedies for birth defects.

ADVANCEMENTS IN CELL TECHNOLOGY the cell’s progeny.

Stem Cells Before we discuss advancements in stem cells, let’s answer this question: what is a stem cell?

Stem cells are remarkable cells that differ significantly from the regular cells in our bodies. Regular cells are specialized — for example, a heart cell can only be a heart cell, and can only carry out heart cell functions. This means that a doctor would not be able to take a cell from your brain and make it work like a heart cell, because the brain cell only knows brain functions. Additionally, regular cells can only divide a certain number of times before they lose too much DNA to divide or become potentially dangerous — as splitting a cell too many times increases the risk for mistakes, possibly causing cancer.

Stem cells, as opposed to regular cells, are unspecialized, which opens the door for noteworthy developments. Stem cells have the unique ability to become specialized, or develop into other types of cells. For example, a stem cell can become a brain cell, heart cell, or red blood cell, and will be able to carry out the roles and functions of the particular cell. This process is called differentiation. Differentiation occurs when a mix of signals from both inside and outside the cell trigger the cell to develop and become a different, completely new and useful cell. Internal triggers include instructions from the cell’s genes, which carry coded instructions for each cell. External triggers include chemicals created by other cells, physical contact with nearby cells, and certain molecules in the microenvironment.

38 | MEDICAL MARVELS

Another amazing aspect of stem cells is that they can replicate many times, whereas ordinary muscle cells, blood cells, and nerve cells cannot. This means that stem cells can replace and renew damaged cells in systems with cells that would not otherwise be able to replicate.

While it is often thought that these special cells can only be developed in high-tech labs, there are actually two types of stem cells: embryonic and adult. Embryonic stem cells are the ones most commonly discussed in medical news. They are derived from embryos that develop from eggs that are fertilized in vitro, or in a culture dish.

In Vitro performed or taking place in a test tube, culture dish, or elsewhere outside a living organism Adult stem cells, on the other hand, are undifferentiated cells found among differentiated cells within the body. They maintain and repair the tissue in which they are found. There is evidence that adult stem cells can be found in the heart or brain, two organs in which adult stem cells were not expected to reside, as heart and brain cells are extremely specialized and do not reproduce very frequently.

The applications of stem cells are varied and encouraging.

Since stem cells are so versatile, they can be utilized in various ways. For example, several studies have shown the potential of stem cells to treat heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States. By transplanting adult stem cells from a patient’s heart or bone marrow, the heart tissue can be regenerated following episodes such as heart attacks or open-heart surgery. Additionally, promising work suggests stem cell therapy may one day be able to treat neurological disorders in humans, including ALS, Parkinson’s disease, and strokes. Studies have shown that transplanted embryonic stem cells can fully integrate into a brain and send and receive nerve signals.

Cell Regeneration

In this process, sutures are placed on the upper and lower partial esophagi and the two parts of the esophagus are pulled towards each other, stimulating cell growth. Over time, the ends of the partial esophagi grow closer and closer together until they have passed each other. Then, surgeons are able to connect the esophagus pieces by essentially sewing them together, which creates a structurally normal esophagus. Through this process, the esophageal tissue can grow to over 50 times its original size. This process has been incredibly significant in improving the lives of those affected by EA. Stem cells and cell regeneration are incredibly encouraging new cell therapy methods. Advancements like these bode well for the future of medicine. The potential applications of these cells are promising, and doctors are working every day to make new discoveries and connections.

Another type of cell development is cell regeneration, the process by which cells are able to grow and redevelop. Cell regeneration can be used to help the body repair itself, without introducing outside cells. It relies on the resilience and adaptability of the human body, and takes advantage of natural cell processes.

An application of this is the Foker process. This process is used to treat long-gap esophageal atresia (EA), a rare birth defect in which a baby is born without part of its esophagus.

Until recently, there was not a satisfactory way to treat longgap EA, as the portions of the esophagus were too far apart to connect surgically. In the early 2000s, however, surgeon John Foker developed a method to stimulate growth of the upper and lower ends of the esophagus.

BY: EMILY MILLER

39 | MEDICAL MARVELS

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S CI EN C E O F FOOD: TRES LEC H ES C AKE INGREDIENTS Serving size: 12 Cake: 1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour 2 tsp. of baking powder ½ tsp. of salt 6 large eggs ½ tsp. of cream of tartar 1 ½ cups of granulated sugar ½ cup of cold water 2 tsp. of vanilla extract 1 teaspoon almond extract Milk Mixture: 1 cup of heavy cream 14 oz. of sweetened condensed milk 5 oz. evaporated milk 2 teaspoons vanilla extract Frosting: 2 cups of cold heavy whipping cream 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract ½ cup of powdered sugar

INSTRUCTIONS 1. Preheat your oven to 350°F. 2. So your moist and delicate creation can be moved easily from pan to plate, cover your 9x13 inch baking pan in aluminum foil.

3. Sift together your 2 tsps. of baking powder (a leavening agent), ½ tsp. of salt, and 1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour. Tres leches is a fluffy sponge cake and sifting the flour first will prevent lumps in the batter.

4. Separate your eggs, ensuring there aren’t any yolks in the whites. The fat in the egg yolks prevents the whites from binding and frothing, which is needed to volumize them. For better results, after separating, let your egg yolks sit out and warm to room temperature.

5. Soon, you will beat the whites into stiff peaks, which denatures (disrupts the molecular conformation of) the proteins in the whites. There are two options for this: whip the whites in a copper bowl or add ½ tsp. of cream of tartar.

Leavening is a chemical reaction when agents like baking powder, baking soda, or yeast make dough or batter rise.

41 | SCIENCE OF FOOD

SCIENCE BEHIND IT The fat in the egg yolks prevents the whites from binding and frothing, which is needed to volumize them.

Copper Bowl:

A chemical reaction occurs between the egg whites and the copper. While beating the whites, copper ions from the bowl migrate to them, creating a conalbumin-copper complex.

This yellowish complex is more stable than conalbumin protein on its own, making the whites harder to over-beat and less likely to unfold than if they were whipped in a glass or steel mixing bowl.

6. Continue to beat the egg whites for 5 to 7 minutes, mixing more air into them until they reach stiff peaks.

This will work to leaven the cake and keep the sponge light. Be gentle with this mixture as you move it; it’s very fragile and can collapse easily. Transfer this to another bowl and set it aside.

7. You want to add as much volume and air to the cake as possible, so use the paddle attachment of your mixer to beat your yolks with your 1 ½ cups of granulated sugar in a clean mixing bowl. Continue until the mixture is thick and pale. This is called the ribbon stage because of the ribbons created on the surface, which slowly dissolve.

While sugar sweetens baked goods, its chemical nature performs other important functions in baking. It can stabilize a meringue, like the one you just made, by slowing down the foaming, and its dissolution protects the bubbles in the peaks from collapse. The bond between sugar and water molecules locks in moisture and creates tenderness.

Cream of Tartar:

Cream of tartar is an acidic salt.The acid stabilizes and acts as a bonding agent for the egg whites, helping them reach their full potential volume.

8. Stir in 2 tsps. of vanilla extract, 1 tsp. of almond extract, and ½ cup of cold water to the yolk mixture. When you’re done with that, add in the flour mixture from earlier and stir again until just combined, meaning it’s not completely smooth and will have some small lumps.

9. In three even batches, fold your egg whites into the batter, combining the two without stirring to maintain the integrity of the egg whites.

10. Grab your prepared pan, pour in the batter, and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

42 | SCIENCE OF FOOD

P.S. HI MOM!

While in the oven, the heat works as a catalyst in the baking powder’s reaction, creating more carbon dioxide that leavens the cake to the fluffy and airy texture that a good tres leches needs.

11. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool completely.

12. Preparing the three milk mixture is much simpler.

Whisk together the 1 cup of heavy cream, 5 oz. of evaporated milk, 14 oz. of sweetened condensed milk, and 2 tsp. of vanilla extract. Put this mixture aside for now.

13. Using a skewer, poke holes across the surface of the cooled cake so the milk mixture can seep in.

14. Pour the milk mixture evenly over the cake.

15. Cover your cake with plastic wrap and let chill in the fridge for three hours or overnight.

16. For the whipped cream frosting, beat the heavy whipping cream with the sugar and vanilla extract until soft peaks form. Spread the frosting over the chilled cake.

17. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

BY: ASYIA TORRES

Relax and enjoy

your tasty tres leches cake!

43 | SCIENCE OF FOOD

HISTORICAL FIGURES: Rosalind Franklin DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is one of the most important molecules in the study of biology. It contains the genetic code required to create and maintain an organism for its whole life. The discovery of DNA in 1869 changed science forever.

After finding that the mice were affected only by bacteria with DNA that codes for proteins that protect the bacteria from the immune system, Griffith was able to prove that genetic information must be stored in DNA.

For a while, scientists weren’t sure whether genetic information was stored in DNA or in proteins. A major breakthrough came in 1928 when Frederick Griffith conducted an experiment using mice and pneumococcus, a bacterium that could infect the mice with a fatal disease.

Knowing that DNA was important, scientists wanted to try to figure out what it looked like — and there was one woman perfect for the job.

"Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience, and experiment."

44 | HISTORICAL FIGURES: ROSALIND FRANKLIN

Rosalind Franklin was born in London, England in 1920. Even as a child, she was naturally curious and displayed great intelligence, and, by the time she was 15, she knew she wanted to be a scientist. To pursue her dream, Franklin enrolled at Newnham College, Cambridge University at the age of 18, where she studied chemistry. Soon after Franklin received her bachelor’s degree, she was offered a research position at the British Coal Utilization Research Association.

During her time there, she studied the porosity of coal, and developed a passion for independent research. Being able to answer questions through empirical studies satisfied her sense of curiosity, and she went on to earn another research position at King’s College London.

There, Franklin studied crystallography, a science that involves firing X-rays at crystals in order to determine their structure. In 1951, she began doing crystallography on

small pieces of DNA. She had originally intended to work on other molecules, but as a result of rapid developments in the field, her manager reassigned her to study DNA and asked Raymond Gosling, a PhD student working under Maurice Wilkins (another crystallographer), to act as her lab assistant.

While working at King’s College, Franklin used crystallography to produce pictures of DNA and wrote reports on its structure.

She was able to greatly improve the X-ray crystallography unit at King’s College during her time there, and she used her newly improved techniques to produce stunning images of DNA molecules. However, she only had a three-year position, and in 1953, she informed the lab that she intended to transfer to another college. Her manager notified Franklin that her DNA research had to stay at King’s College. Shortly before Franklin left the lab at King’s College, Gosling gave Wilkins copies of her photographs. Wilkins then presented these images to James Watson, who, with Francis Crick, went on to develop the correct model of DNA. In 1962, Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins won the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the structure of DNA, after years of gathering more data and further proof of their model.

As a result of countless hours of X-ray exposure as a part of her research, Franklin contracted ovarian cancer and passed away in 1958, without having received any credit for the Nobel Prize.

There is some controversy over whether Rosalind Franklin was unfairly excluded from mainstream scientific recognition. It is somewhat unclear whether it was ethical for Wilkins to have showed Franklin’s photographs to James Watson without Franklin’s permission, and many believe she should have received more credit in the Nobel Prize, even though the Nobel Prize rules do not allow posthumous nominations or prizes split between more than three people. Franklin did receive some recognition during her lifetime when one of her articles, with xray data, was published in the same issue of Nature as Watson

PC: Wikimedia Commons and Crick’s reveal of their model. According to Brenda Maddox in The Dark Lady of DNA, her biography of Franklin, Franklin’s paper was seemingly only included in that issue as support for Watson and Crick’s paper.

Watson and Crick did reference her in their article, but it was in a footnote acknowledging her and Wilkins helping them through an unpublished contribution.

The story of Rosalind Franklin is a reminder that the work of women and minorities in science was, and sometimes still is, overlooked. It’s important to recognize all the people who lend their efforts to the progress of science and especially those whose contributions have gone unreported.

PC: Wikimedia Commons

BY: ERIN ROBINSON

45 | HISTORICAL FIGURES: ROSALIND FRANKLIN

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XENA WORKWEAR Fashion Forward Women in STEM

As jobs become more versatile, many fields require individuals to spend time in both the office and manufacturing environments. Along with this comes the necessity for proper safety equipment, known as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). However, there are limited workwear options to accommodate for these safety standards, especially for women.

When Anastasia Kraft worked as a mechanical engineer, she spent her workdays in clunky steel-toed boots that were designed for men. The footwear often prevented her from attaining optimal working performance due to being in a constant state of discomfort. This situation is not uncommon among women who work in similar conditions — women are typically hard-pressed to find professional shoes that are both functional and fashionable.

After communicating with other women who had experienced the same struggle, Kraft took the initiative to design a line of workboots for women that gives them the best of both worlds.

Kraft originally worked in the corporate world but, after noticing these inefficiencies, she was determined to take a different path. She aimed to “identify the gap and find [her] desire to be more flexible and make a bigger impact.” With the help of an accelerator program, a cohort program that helps start-ups in the early phases, Xena Workwear launched in May 2019 and has since been working to make her products accessible to women around the world.

Kraft describes the process of designing her shoes as strenuous yet rewarding. When it came to her footwear, Kraft knew that there were many intricacies that needed to be addressed. At the same time, she did not want to “overengineer” the shoe; rather, she wanted to put out the most efficient product. These restrictions caused her company to face obstacles in its initial phases.

Within the manufacturing industry, some companies place restrictions on heel heights. This makes dressing professionally while adhering to safety standards nearly impossible for many women. Although this number may vary from company to company, it often isn’t based on actual evidence of which heel heights are safe. Employers often express safety concerns when women walk into work wearing boots with heels, despite the fact that many men’s shoes are well over one inch high.

48 SENSORS 48 ||EXPLORING FASHION: XENA WORKWEAR

BY: SANJANA YEDDULA

"If you are persistent and have a true passion for it, you will be successful.�

To overcome this double standard, Kraft has had to educate many companies about global footwear standards and the need to change rules regarding footwear that favors both men and women. Ultimately, she developed a low-cut leather bootie that has a puncture-resistant midsole, a steel toe cap, and a rubber outsole that is heat, chemical, and slip-resistant.

"You must be ready to sacrifice free time and work very long hours ...

but, most importantly, you should be...

READY TO FAIL."

When it comes to creating these initiatives, Kraft says the most important thing is to ask yourself if what you are working towards is something you are truly passionate about. “You must be ready to sacrifice free time and work very long hours but, most importantly, you should be ready to fail,” she explains. “But if you are persistent and have a true passion for it, you will be successful.”

Kraft believes that failure is inevitable in any entrepreneurial process, but it is something you should see as an advantage rather than a setback.

Instead of being forced to dress down to accommodate safety standards, Xena Workwear is putting an unprecedented product on the market that allows women in STEM to express themselves in any environment. Customers also enjoy the versatility of the shoe as it allows them to “go from a business meeting or a presentation to [the manufacturing] site without having to worry that [their] shoes are inappropriate.” In fact, Xena Workwear's shoes are so fashionable and comfortable that many customers wear them in their everyday lives. Currently, Xena Workwear is expanding and the company is set to release more steel-toed designs in the upcoming months!

Visit them online at

www.xenaworkwear.com 48 SENSORS 50 ||EXPLORING FASHION: XENA WORKWEAR

DIY: Collision Course!

The Moon is widely admired for its very unique craters and dimpled appearance. However those deep holes in the lunar surface were created millions of years ago through very violent collisions of space debris and meteors.

The various velocities of the objects hitting the Moon caused the resulting craters to be various shapes and sizes. It is arguable that the lunar dust, or regolith, may have cushioned the impact of the objects and held the shapes that we are able to see today.

So how did that work?

Luckily, we can see this happen for ourselves by conducting our own experiment! Using some simple items that you probably already have in your home, we can see how the craters of the moon probably were formed.

50 | DIY: CHLADNI PLATES

51 | DIY : COLLISION COURSE

Step 1: Get Regolith Take a paper plate and fill it with flour all the way to the top! This will be our regolith. Try to get it as smooth as possible on the surface with little to no bumps. You will also need a penny and a measuring tape! It is recommended you do this experiment outside because it can get a little messy!

52 | DIY : COLLISION COURSE

Step 2: Start Small Now you are going to simulate the first crater impact. To do this measure a length of 10 inches from the top of the flour. Hold the penny at that height and then release it. The penny is going to fall into the flour and cause it to simulate the formation of a crater! It might create some clouds of flour like the lunar regolith would react in space.

Step 3: Measure the Depth Carefully remove the penny from the flour.

Then take your measuring tape and see how deep and wide your crater is.

After you record your data, smooth the flour over so that it is nice and flat again.

BY: ABBY JOHNSON

53 | DIY COLLISION COURSEÂ

Step 4: Repeat the Process

54 | DIY: COLLISION COURSE

Repeat Steps 2 and 3 from different heights! I recommend testing it out at 30 inches and 50 inches to see the different sizes of the craters.

The idea of this experiment was to show you how different heights affect the size and impact radiuses of craters. The greater the drop distance of the penny, the greater the size of the crater.

That is exactly why the craters of the Moon are all various shapes and sizes.

PC: NASA/ Goddard/Arizona State University

We used a constant variable however, keeping the size of our meteor (the penny) the same size and width. If you would like to see how this affects the size of the crater, then I suggest trying it with a larger or smaller coin - maybe a quarter or a dime!

55 | DIY : COLLISION COURSE

femineers.

BRIDGING THE GAP

Girls don’t like math. Girls are bad at science. Leave the technology to the boys because they are the only ones who will be interested in it later in life. Boys like to build stuff and girls like fashion. It’s natural for girls to lose interest in math at a certain age. Boys are simply better at STEM. All are wrong. All are stereotypes. According to the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), women have been moving away from potential STEM careers since the early 1980s. Whether it's due to gender stereotyping, fear of being underpaid, or both, the gender gap in STEM has been a severe issue in our society for years. The only way to stop the slide is to get involved and do something about it, and the Femineer program is doing exactly that!

ASEE describes the goals of the Femineers Program in four points:

the program

1.Provide K-12 female students with project-based learning

The Femineer Program was designed to help young women combat and maneuver through peer pressure, gender barriers, and stereotypes. Formed in 2013 at Fremont Academy of Engineering and Design in Pomona, California, The Femineer Program's entire mission is to introduce young female students to STEM before college, inspire them to envision themselves in STEM roles, and empower them to rethink how they feel about STEM courses. The program essentially throws open the doors of STEM and welcomes young women to step inside. Come one, come all — welcome to the wonderful world of STEM. Don't be shy; there is something here for everyone!

Program with development workshops

56 | FEMINEERS

opportunities 2.Provide K-12 teachers who plan to facilitate a Femineers 3.Provide assistance from Cal Poly to their partner schools 4.Provide students and families involved in the program outreach events at Cal Poly In pursuit of these four goals, the program allows students to explore and acquire STEM skills in a fun and meaningful way.

The Femineer experience sticks with the students, instilling a genuine sense of achievement and making a STEM career seem like a real possibility. For students, this experience becomes not only a fun activity they did on the weekend or during a semester of school but also an affirmation that they belong in STEM. STEM becomes a realistic notion rather than a fleeting idea.

To further highlight the success and effectiveness of the program, in 2015, the White House recognized the Femineers Program for its achievements in "increasing educational outcomes and opportunities for female Hispanic K-12 students across the country." Just last school year, over 1,500 students participated in the program, now prepared to take on a future in STEM.

how do they do it?

The Femineer Program was created in 2013 by Cal Poly Pomona’s College of Engineering as a way to inspire more females to pursue STEM in their education and ultimately in their careers. The program is open to female K-12 students using project-based learning consisting of all-female mentors. The Femineer Program consists of three hands-on years of curriculum: Creative Robotics, Wearable Technology, and Pi Robotics. Each year, a tool-kit is issued to each student containing all that is needed to complete their 30-hour project. Each individual school can decide whether to assign the project in conjunction with the academic curriculum or as an after-school project.

year one: creative robotics To combat the notion that science and creative expression are mutually exclusive, Year One centers around creativity.

Students create a robot that moves, lights up, and makes a sound. Allowing students to be creative helps to foster good teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills.

Throughout the course of building their robot, students will learn about entry-level engineering, Scratch programming, and fabrication of functional models/projects.

year two: wearable technology

year three: Pi Robotics In the third and final year, students become familiar with Raspberry Pi. Students will learn how to program the microcomputer board and learn about the Raspberry Pi operating system, electronics, Python, more advanced Scratch programming, and robotics.

The skills that Femineer students learn in this three-phase program — programming, electronics, and more — are capabilities that many students don't develop until they are in college. Students come out inspired and better prepared to tackle whatever STEM career they choose. The positivity and encouragement that students receive in the program stay with them long after their completion of the program.

branching out The Femineer Program is no longer sustained strictly by Cal Poly Pomona.

In 2016, San Diego State University and the University of Iowa signed on as affiliates. As an affiliate, both universities join Cal Poly Pomona in upholding the goals and core principles of the Femineers Program, which includes offering educational opportunities to local schools and educators.

the importance of mentors

The Femineer Program accomplishes what is proven to be a key component in involving more young women in STEM: mentorship. Seeing other women in STEM is crucial to young girls to help them visualize themselves in that role. After all, we tend to emulate what we see. Representation matters.

The Femineer Program is steering young women in STEM in the right direction and is working hard to ensure the program continues for future generations.

Wearable technology is everywhere these days, from smart heart monitors to high-tech activity trackers. In the second year of the Femineers Program, students will learn how wearable technology applies to fashion, technology, health, and beyond. Once students are comfortable with basic electronics, they move to create a small, beginner-level wearable project with conductive thread. Year Two concludes with a larger wearable project that involves the use of a multimeter, soldering, and Arduino programming.

BY: JENN TOSO

57 | FEMINEERS

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Link: https ://women. dev

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Where: Or lando, FL When: Sep tember 29 - October What: GH 2, 2020 C is the wo r l d ’ s largest ga women te thering of chnologis t s .

A t t end inspir keynotes, ing network w ith peers, important and gain resources t o h elp you su your caree cceed in r. Scholar ships are Link: http available! s://ghc.a nitab.org/ 2020-atten d/

Ask Gloria Gloria Kimbwala is CEO and founder of Shule, a startup that tokenizes international experiential learning systems in decentralized education.

Previously to venturing out on her own, she was Square's University Tech Evangelist where she focused on helping connect people to the tools, programs, and support they need to enter the technology industry. This includes leading programs such as Square's Code Camps, an immersion program that supports college women in pursuing careers in technology. She was recently named on the Top Ten Women in Fintech by Fintech Ranking. Her nontraditional path into technology includes a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies and a Master's degree in Computer Science.

Gloria is the Technical Advisor on the Society of Women Coder's (SOWCoder's) Board which brings technical skills to women across the globe. In her spare time, you can find her coding with her sons, doing yoga, and playing the drums.

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU TO GO TO WORK EVERYDAY? Motivation comes in many different forms. People can be motivated by money, impact, prestige or pain. Personally, I am someone that is motivated by the impact that the role I have will have on others. I’m motivated by my kids being able to see what a working mom looks like and my niece, Leila. She loves computers and wants to be a software engineer and I want to make sure that she can be anything she puts her mind to. Other motivations can be buying a house, retiring early, helping out at home, moving up in the organization, solving a problem, or being the first of something.

What goes deeper than one's personal motivation is a company's motivation. One reason I love mission statements is it allows you to align your motivation with the overall motivation of the organization. The more you align with the mission the greater the potential the role has to continue to motivate you. What is even better is to create a personal mission statement for who you are as an employee and how you want to be in the workplace.

I'M NOT MAJORING IN CS, BUT I'M REALLY INTERESTED IN CODING. ANY SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO GET STARTED? Congrats on finding something that you are interested in. One of the great benefits of coding is that it is applicable in a variety of roles, major and industries. Ideally you can blend your major and your passion for coding in some fashion. I have seen a lot of great engineers that have backgrounds in art, physics, philosophy, music, and mathematics. If you are looking to get started with coding I would recommend spending some time on codeacademy or taking an entry level programming course. Another great way to get involved with coding is to participate in a hackathon, conference or attend a meetup.

Lastly, I would recommend doing a tutorial from YouTube or Medium. Once you felt comfortable with your technology of choice I would create a portfolio and look into getting an internship. Most importantly, never stop learning and exploring!

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WHAT’S SOMETHING YOU THOUGHT WAS IMPORTANT EARLY IN YOUR CAREER BUT TURNED OUT NOT TO BE? Something that I thought was going to be really important in life but turned out not to be is Grade Point Average (GPA).

During high school and college a lot of emphasis is placed on GPA so much so that it started to develop a little anxiety around making sure I had the highest GPA I could get. Once I left college I never had a use to refer to it at all. Once you join the workforce it is more important to focus on having a growth mindset, sharing the knowledge with your coworkers, and engaging in your interest inside and outside of the workplace.

HOW DO I BALANCE WANTING TO MOVE INTO LEADERSHIP WHILE GETTING A BREADTH OF EXPERIENCE? Both of these steps are great directions and I don't think it is important to prioritize one over the other. There are often small ways that you can lead a team in actions and motivation. You could start taking on different tasks like leading the morning standups, developing better process flows, and creating avenues for knowledge sharing. If you are looking into moving into a leadership role in your organization it will be important to meet with your manager to find out more about the exact steps you need to take to move up. This is something that you should be discussing often in your 1:1s. Breadth of experience is also something that makes you valuable in an organization. The more insight you have into different teams, stacks, technologies, and people the easier it is to understand how to collaborate and the effects that your work has on the rest of the organization. Most people think the way to the top is a ladder but it's better to think of it like a pyramid with knowledge as a base. It's better that its wide to start and your focus narrows as you move upward rather than having a narrow linear progression to the top with no room to pivot.

"Most importantly, never stop learning and exploring!"

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