As an aspiring engineer, I chose to make my community a better place through my Girl Scouts Gold Award project: Advocating Women In STEM.

According to The Global Gender Gap Report of 2023, women made up 29.2% of the STEM workforce in 146 evaluated nations. My goal is to help raise that percentage by stimulating interest so that more girls study STEM leading to a better gender balance with diverse viewpoints and skills.

I’m fortunate to have engineer parents who gave me confidence growing up to pursue a career in a male-dominated arena. I aim to instill that confidence in young girls and be part of the change to curb current biases, barriers, and stereotypical behaviors that are holding women back from entering various STEM fields. 

To that end, for my project I video-interviewed significant people, receiving insight into their advice and thoughts on this social injustice to share with the younger generation. I included a range of viewpoints: from teachers to the STEM Engagement Director at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, David Seidel; and the Executive Director of Undergraduate Admission at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Paul Ledesma. 

I published a website (advocatingwomeninstem.com) embedding these visual interviews. I showcase guidance for younger girls, including programs and websites they can utilize to involve themselves more in STEM and pursue their dreams. 

To further spread this information, I’ve conducted presentations for juniors at my high school, where I share my accomplishments and motivate them to go after something they believe in. For elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, and other Girl Scout Troops, I’ll be hosting interactive STEM days with town hall-type talks to share my findings and have Q&A sessions.

I want to inspire girls to strive to achieve all their goals, by inspiring their confidence and to ignore any discouraging noise they may encounter. I’ll continue my advocacy beyond the completion of my Gold Award – making new contributions to my website by adding perspectives and tips I gain along the way on my engineering academic and career paths to make my community a better place for all girls.