Technological Women

A MUST-hear interview with Dana Brownlee on building camaraderie and accountability in your project meetings.

2011-02-21T16:54:00.000-08:00

Dana Brownlee shares facilitation techniques and best practices to build a sense of camaraderie and accountability in our project meetings.

In 2003 Dana Brownlee, PMP founded Professionalism Matters, Inc., a boutique professional development training and consulting firm providing interactive training workshops in the areas of project management, meeting facilitation, team building, workplace professionalism, organizational development, and communications skills.

Dana’s client list includes the CDC, EPA, Emory Professional Learning Program, Georgia Power Company, Mississippi Power Company, Southface Energy Institute, Learning Tree International, and many others. She has taught throughout the U.S. as well as in Canada and the U.K., and she has authored a course currently taught in five countries. Dana holds a PMP as well as a Bachelor of Science from Spellman College, Bachelor of Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech, and a Masters of Business Administration from Emory University.

Listen to this interview on Samad Aidane's Guerrilla Project Management blog:

Samad Aidane is a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with over 15 years of IT experience. His experience spans several industries including Telecom, Finance, Health Care, and Government on projects in U.S, Germany, Austria, and Belgium. Visit Guerrilla Project Management blog for more information. Follow Aidane on twitter @samadaidane

Samad Aidane is also host of upcoming Live Online Project Management Telesummit: March 8-10. See agenda and speakers - http://www.pmtelesummits.com/agenda

Beth Massi - Sharing the goodness that is Microsoft

2011-01-25T16:32:00.000-08:00

Beth Massi is a Senior Program Manager on the Microsoft Visual Studio BizApps team who build the Visual Studio tools for Azure, Office, SharePoint as well as Visual Studio LightSwitch. Beth is a community champion for business application developers and is responsible for producing and managing online content and community interaction for the BizApps team. She has over 15 years of industry experience building business applications and is a frequent speaker at various software development events.

You can find Beth Massi on a variety of developer sites including MSDN Developer Centers, Channel 9, and her blog http://www.bethmassi.com. Follow her on twitter @BethMassi

Fair-Wright: As a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, what are your primary duties?

Massi: I am the community manager for the Visual Studio BizApps team who build the Visual Studio tools for Office, SharePoint, Azure, Data, as well as a new product called Visual Studio LightSwitch. I am responsible for producing and managing content and community interaction for the entire BizApps team. This includes various forums, blogs and web sites. I also manage a few MSDN Developer Centers like http://msdn.com/lightswitch and http://msdn.com/vsto as well as make sure feedback from the community gets back into our products so we can make them better. I also travel and speak at conferences and training events as well as help run our local .NET users group in the San Francisco East Bay. It’s a lot of work but also a ton of fun.

Fair-Wright: What is it like working for Microsoft?

Massi: Microsoft is an awesome company to work for. There are a lot of amazing things Microsoft and its employees do for the world that probably never gets talked about. There are also some seriously brilliant people here and it’s always great to work somewhere where you are constantly learning new things. Microsoft culture is fun, open, brilliant, and encouraging to new ideas and approaches.

Fair-Wright: Why did you decide on technology as your profession?

Massi: As I child I fell in love with video games pretty early on. So much so that my parents would have to drag me outside to play. When I was 8 years old my parents bought me an Atari 400 computer and I learned how to program BASIC. As I got older I learned Pascal and then eventually C. However I wanted to be a graphic design major so I started doing that when I got to college. Unfortunately (or fortunately? ;-)) I was a much better programmer than an artist so I decided to get a Computer Science degree. I do still love drawing and painting though and do that in my (limited) spare time.

Fair-Wright: What advice would you give to young women just beginning their careers in IT?

Massi: Don’t be intimidated by the male-dominated science classes. If computers are your passion, stick to it. IT can be a very creative profession and I think women have some very unique perspectives on the science.

Fair-Wright: What innovations can we expect to see in the next few years with Visual Studio Lightswitch?

Massi: Visual Studio LightSwitch, simply put, is the easiest way to develop business applications for the desktop or the cloud. We recognize that it’s difficult to build scalable .NET n-tier, cloud-based, data-oriented applications and this new Visual Studio development environment aims to break down that barrier of difficulty. LightSwitch does all the plumbing for you so that you just concentrate on screens, data and business logic. We are also working with partners and the community to have a vibrant ecosystem so there will be lots of support and third-party add ons. To get started head to the LightSwitch Developer Center: http://msdn.com/lightswitch

Nathelyne Archie Kennedy has six words to describe her 50-year long career: “Don’t be afraid to venture out.”

2011-01-04T21:57:00.000-08:00

Kennedy risked majoring in engineering in 1950s Texas, when it was a safe bet to teach. As a new college graduate in 1959, when offers weren’t coming in as quickly as she had expected, Kennedy ventured beyond her immediate boundary in Texas and moved to Chicago, where she landed her first job. Two decades on, while most women-of-color entrepreneurs were still starting small retail businesses, she became the face of a new, growth business in the early 1980s.

Over the last twenty-eight years Kennedy has made an art of finding and keeping talent at her Houston-based civil and structural consulting engineering firm. A household name in design for its contributions to many of Houston’s most visible landmarks, Nathelyne A. Kennedy & Associates is a top player in large-scale, major public-works projects. These include the Reliant Stadium, where the Houston Texans play football and famous rodeos are hosted, Astros Minute Maid Park (dubbed one of America’s best ballparks), Metro’s Light Rail System and the George Bush Intercontinental Airport $45- million air-cargo expansion.

Kennedy credits her success to a mix of business astuteness, the ability to hire and retain top talent, and staying informed.

“ I read the Houston Chronicle from cover to cover every day,” she says, “because it’s important to know what’s going on in the county, the city and the state. It’s important to be involved politically, participate in professional associations with other engineers, and to be involved in the community. The more you are involved the more people remember you.”

That insight is what Kennedy, one of a new generation of women-of-color entrepreneurs who started engineering firms in the 1980s, applies to her business, which employs about 20 people and generates close to $4 million in annual revenue.

“How do you measure success?” I ask. Kennedy pauses for a second.

“When the community I live and work in is complimentary of my company and me that’s success,” she says, adding, “It’s just as important as when [NAK] employees say good things about the company. It’s also about being able to make some money.”

In 2006—the year minority women owned about 2.4 million companies, employed 1.6 million people and generated a total of $230 billion in sales—Kennedy was recognized by the city of Houston’s mayor, Bill White, as a “prime contractor for major, public projects based on its excellent performance.” Kennedy is a leader in Texas’ small-, minority- and women-owned business community.

Michelle K. Swayzer, a 1980 Prairie View alumna, says, “I first met her more than 10 years ago when I started a small engineering firm,” she says. “Mrs. Kennedy was one of the business mentors I had through the City of Houston Mentor/protégé program. We’d talk on a regular basis about the trade and, about what was going on in our communities. She’d give me insights on how to help the company grow.”

Swayzer has seen her proprietorship grow into an eight-person firm since she established her business in 1995. The company provides design/construction services for mechanical, electrical as well as telecommunication projects.

“My door has always been open,” Kennedy says, “I’ve been helping other entrepreneurs since I’ve been in business in 1982.”

In recognition of her unstinting support for engineering professionals and entrepreneurs and her commitment to her alma meter, Prairie View University dedicated a three-story, 105,000 square foot building as the Nathelyne Archie Kennedy School of Architecture during the college’s homecoming in 2006.

"The building is a splendid space,” Kennedy says. “Michael Rotondi's exposed skeleton concept is perfect for inspiring architecture students. And I'm glad the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture will be housed in it as well."

Kennedy has come a long way. Born in Richards, Texas, Kennedy was an architectural engineering senior at Prairie View A&M University, when A Raisin in the Sun became the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, as well as the first play with a black director on Broadway. The experiences in Lorraine Hansberry’s play were a reflection of Kennedy’s real experiences as a new black female graduate in 1950s Texas, when female engineers were a rarity.

Ten years before she graduated, 0.3 percent of all engineers in the United States were women. Over the next forty years, the rate of increase was astonishing. By 1983, the proportion was up 5.8 percent. By the end of the millennium, after engineering colleges had spent millions of dollars making special efforts to woo and retain women students, the figure had almost doubled, to 10.6 percent. Kennedy predicts the trend will only increase in the coming years.

How does the first-generation role model see second-generation entrepreneurs? I ask.

“America’s technology-driven development will bring new opportunities, says the soft-spoken 69-year-old trailblazer. “It’s impossible to imagine the improvements that will come in the future.”

2008 Reprint Curtesy of Lango Deen
www.blackengineer.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/lango-deen/22/1aa/7a3

Engineering A Change - Judith Love Cohen

2010-12-22T12:08:00.000-08:00

"You know, Judy," the 66-year-old Cohen remembers her counselor telling her, "I think you ought to go to a nice finishing school and learn to be a lady."
The women in Judith Love Cohen's family--her mother and aunts-- worked at Great-Uncle Harry's dress factory in Brooklyn, and that was that. Growing up in the '40s, Cohen sewed lace doilies at home. But for fun she turned to her father, a soda salesman, who taught her basic geometry by using ashtrays to demonstrate lines, angles and equations.

By fifth grade, kids started paying Cohen to do their math homework. In junior high school, she was the only girl in intermediate algebra. In high school, she won a state scholarship to Brooklyn College and thought about becoming a math teacher. But her guidance counselor told her that girls don't go into math or science. "You know, Judy," the 66-year-old Cohen remembers her counselor telling her, "I think you ought to go to a nice finishing school and learn to be a lady."

Instead, Cohen earned engineering degrees at USC and worked on NASA projects. Today she is the co-author and co-publisher of a series of books encouraging elementary school girls to consider careers in science and math. The 11-book series features female professionals such as a paleontologist, Egyptologist and marine biologist. Cohen's first book in 1991, "You Can Be a Woman Engineer," traces her arc from a girl who had never heard of female engineers to a woman who led a team of engineers on the design for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

"You only think about things when you see people doing it. Most girls know now they can be lawyers" from TV shows like "Ally McBeal" and female lawyers in the news, Cohen said. "They know that they can work in an emergency room--they've seen 'ER.' But I don't recall that anyone has seen scientists on a large scale, except for a few paleontologists in 'Jurassic Park.' "

At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, physicist Barbara Wilson, 50, said she never knew of any female scientists while growing up in the Midwest. At age 10, she started reading science fiction books for inspiration, but none of them featured women. In school, counselors dismissed the idea of her becoming a scientist, saying she should consider jobs that "women are more likely to be good at." Books like Cohen's would have provided the validation she sought, said Wilson, JPL's chief technologist.

"It was really difficult psychologically and emotionally to be better than all the boys in math and science," she said. "[The books] really would have helped encourage my feeling good about myself, that this was the direction I wanted to go. I didn't see role models. I didn't get encouragement other than at home."

Working for the Day Series Won't Be Needed

The books are illustrated by Cohen's husband, David A. Katz, 50, formerly a substitute teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In 1989, the couple formed a publishing company, Cascade Pass Inc. in Marina del Rey, to put out the series. Three years ago, Cohen quit her engineering job and Katz gave up substitute teaching to work full time on the books and related products such as CD-ROMs, CDs and teaching kits. The products are aimed at girls 8 to 14, but at book events, boys ask their parents to buy the books too, Katz said.

"The truth is, someday we hope we won't need these books," he said. "We'll live in an equitable society, and we won't need to have boys or girls in the title."

For now, though, the books help open up a new world for girls, said Gayle Horn, principal of Washington Elementary School in Corona.

"I think girls are underrepresented in the professional fields involving math and science still," said Horn, who is organizing a math and science conference for girls at the school in November. In 1995, women received 31% of all science and engineering degrees, according to the National Science Foundation, slightly better than the 26% of a decade earlier.

"We still feel we're not making headway in the professions," Horn explained. "We feel that teaching them in junior high school and high school is not enough. We're really pushing the idea of getting girls involved in changing their self-perception on careers in math and science."

In May, Cohen and Katz released their latest book in the series--a profile of Cal Poly Pomona botanist Kristin Rose Bozak, who researches the cloning of DNA from avocado plants to control the ripening process.

And in July, they started a separate series to encourage girls to participate in sports and other disciplines that round out a person. In the new series, the first book, "You Can Be a Woman Basketball Player," chronicles the rise of WNBA player Tamecka Dixon of the Los Angeles Sparks. Cohen, the mother of four grown children from previous marriages, dedicated that book to her only daughter, a women's basketball fan, who is a legal secretary and musician.

Inspiration Came From Fourth-Grade Students

The couple have built their lives around the company, using vacations to drive to book events, schools and publishing conventions. In their cramped warehouse office, each brims with ideas and worries about small details, such as how the plastic kits for the botanist book--which includes a shovel and zinnia seeds--could get frozen shut this winter in shipments around the country.

Katz got the idea for the books from his work teaching fourth-grade students in South-Central Los Angeles. He could not believe what he heard when he asked girls what they wanted to do when they grew up.

"I was kind of shocked because they came up with what I think of as stereotypical answers," he said. "The girls would say, 'Teaching. Nursing. Secretary.' "

He came home and told Cohen, who thought back to her days in Brooklyn, before she got bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering at USC. No one had ever encouraged her to pursue science, and five decades later, it seemed as if girls were not even thinking about careers as engineers or scientists.

She remembered how lonely she felt as a top math student in elementary school. The other girls thought about parties and the cheerleading squad. Her mind was a jumble of Xs and Ys: How fast was that corn pouring out of the silo? How long would it take those men to unload the bricks?

Cohen wanted to tell schoolgirls her story, how she felt different because she liked to figure out math and science equations. With Katz's help, she wrote her story, and the couple printed and stapled copies of it. Word spread, as Katz distributed free copies at school, and teachers started requesting the handouts and designing lesson plans around them. After they published the engineering book, the couple helped write the stories of other women, such as an assistant curator at the San Diego Zoo and a marine biologist on Catalina Island.

So far, the couple have sold 80,000 books. The paperback and hardcover books, which sell for $6 to $7, are sold at science museums and other book stores; some are available in Spanish. The books are available online at http://www.cascadepass.com .

At book signings, Cohen tells girls not to shy away from male-dominated fields. In the late '60s, when she began her career, only one-half of 1% of all engineers were women--but that didn't faze her.

"I had already figured out," she said, "that I was going to do things that no [other girls] ever did."

Talking with PMI's 'New Media Council' Founder, Author, and Social Media Guru: Elizabeth Harrin

2010-12-03T20:08:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Harrin is Head of IT Programme Delivery at a UK healthcare company. She's the author of Social Media for Project Managers and Project Management in the Real World. She's a PRINCE2 and MSP Practitioner. A founding member of PMI's New Media Council, Elizabeth was voted IT Blogger of the Year in the Computer Weekly Blog Awards this year for her blog A Girl's Guide to Project Management.

Fair-Wright: How would you explain Social Media in simple terms?

Harrin: Think of how the internet used to be - flat, static pages, like corporate brochures online. That's changed now. Company websites aren't just 'brochureware' any more. They include areas for customers to comment and ask questions, videos and audio content, maybe a blog from the CEO, contests where customers upload photos and lots more. The internet is a much more interactive place now. This is how social media tools and the advent of what we call Web 2.0 have changed how we use computers to communicate with other people. The internet used to be a research tool - now it's a community.

Social media for use behind the firewall in organisations is about tapping into this and bringing it into the company on a smaller scale. It's communication and collaboration with purpose. Social media tools are finding their way from the branding and marketing teams (where they are used for customer outreach and publicity) to the hub of companies and project teams that are making new things happen. Old working methods are being challenged by the fact that those people working on projects are using social media tools to communicate and collaborate, and the ways in which we work with colleagues and virtual teams have changed.

Fair-Wright: There are critics who say that technology is dangerous and is moving to fast. What's your reaction?

Harrin: Good grief. What's the right pace of adoption for new things? I'm sure stone age man thought wheels were dangerous when they first came in. We've been promised sentient robots for decades and they haven't shown up yet, so I really don't think people have anything to worry about. Social media in the workplace is not being adopted quickly. I first spoke about it in public in 2008 and just this October at the PMI Global Congress North America I was answering the same questions. I think it will happen, but it's taking its time.

Fair-Wright: What social media tools/applications can Project Managers use every day to make their job easier?

Harrin: I think the tool with the lowest barrier to entry is the wiki. There are plenty of wiki tools to choose from, they are easy to set up, they require very little training to get going and they make excellent knowledge repositories. On long projects, the project team gathers a fair amount of data and this all has to be handed over to the operational team at the end when the project team disbands. A wiki is a great way to capture all this in a structured(ish) way, as you go along. You could also use one at the PMO level for gathering lessons learned. They are easy to search, so project managers could easily search to find lessons that are relevant to their work, and then update it with tips on how they managed not to fall into the same trap. I love wikis, and I don't think we make enough use of them.

The other tool I have personally grown to find very useful is Twitter.
If you'd asked me that a year ago I would never had said that it would become something I considered important to my role as a project manager - I was a late adopter to Twitter and it took me a long time to understand how to make any sense out of it (discovering TweetDeck was a big step forward). However, Twitter is a great tool for morale support, quick answers and just generally feeling connected to other project professionals around the world. I think that often being a PM is a lonely job - we lead a team, but unless you work on a big programme you are rarely directly working with other PMs. Twitter helps me feel like part of a bigger community of people struggling with the same issues. One good example of that is when my blog just disappeared earlier this year. I knew it must have been something I'd done, but with four and a half years of work deleted at the click of a mouse, I was distraught. Within minutes of tweeting it, I had lots of responses - some just offering morale support, others with useful advice about what to fix and who could help, and some responses came from people I'd never conversed with before. It was my problem to fix, but a few friendly voices in cyberspace certainly made me feel better and a little less like an idiot for sobbing over my keyboard.

Fair-Wright: Do you ever experience information overload?

Harrin: Yes! Interestingly, and I only realised this the other day, mainly at home. I have processes in place during the working day to prevent it.
But I run my own small business, The Otobos Group, from home, and I'm a lot more susceptible to information overload there than I am in my 'normal' job.

Fair-Wright: How do you deal with it?

Harrin: I split time into Task time and Focus time, which is a tip I learned
from the Get-It-Done Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More book.
Task time is when you group all tasks together, so I'll have a blitz at answering emails. Focus time is when you focus on one particular project and just do things related to that. I am least effective when I'm multi-tasking which is normally trying to respond to emails or catch up on Twitter when watching CSI on the television.

Fair-Wright: What do you say to a manager who banned social apps like Twitter and Facebook in the workplace?

Harrin: Many people have access to these apps on their smart phones now, so while you can ban them from the office PCs (or use a 'quota time' system), it won't stop employees accessing them from personal mobile devices. It's a much better approach to educate employees into what is good practice at work. After all, an employee could equally spend all day surfing the internet on non-banned sites. If the issue is the personal use of the internet to the detriment of spending time doing their jobs, then managers should use their discretion through the normal disciplinary processes that would be enforced if the employee
was consistently late or took excessive smoking breaks, for example.
If the issue is the use of social apps at all, then I'd have to ask, what is the manager trying to prevent?

Elizabeth Harrin is the author of the author of Social Media for Project Managers and Project Management in the Real World. Visit A Girl’s Guide to Project Management for more information.

Professor Gina Rippon dismisses the idea that our brains are controlled by gender as ‘outdated and wrong’.

2010-11-07T19:52:00.001-08:00

Professor Rippon recently made the headlines when she spoke out about the largely identical characteristics of male and female brains, including a discussion with Professor Robert Winston on the Today Programme BBC Radio 4 (Listen: Is Neuroscience Sexist?)

Professor Gina Rippon is Chair of Cognitive NeuroImaging, School of Life and Health Sciences (Psychology) at Aston University, Birmingham.

Rippon Interview: My academic career didn’t have a very auspicious start: for family reasons I was sent to an all-girls, Catholic, boarding, convent (just work through the educational implications associated with those 4 words!). I collected a rather motley set of A-levels and cast around for a degree course that fitted them.

I had always enjoyed science. But I was also a ‘smart ass’ who liked to ask questions/challenge orthodoxies. (Generally a ‘goody goody’ who always liked to be top at whatever I did, I was chucked out of the catechism class for complaining about religion telling us some things were ‘unknowable’.) Psychology was an ideal topic for me as it (generally) embraced the scientific method but also allowed you to explore alternative explanations and provided you with the tools to argue.

Then I went to Warwick where I found myself teaching ‘biological politics’ as well as more fundamental science modules. I had a particular interest in how biological explanations (‘Biology is Destiny’ - usually couched in terms of ‘raging hormones’) were used to support differences in roles and abilities which equally well could have been due to social conditioning and learning experiences. This particularly applied to women’s mental health.

I moved to Aston, focussing on developing brain imaging techniques as this was one of the few centres in the UK which had all the key brain imaging tools. However, I became increasingly aware that the ‘Biology is destiny’ arguments were being recouched in brain or ‘neuro-‘ terms, with a rash of populist books – which I termed ‘neurotrash’ - frequently mangling the very neuroscience research that I was involved in.

I developed a talk for the recent British Science Festival at Aston, to demonstrate how science can be misunderstood, misquoted and misrepresented, sometimes in support of stereotypes or socio-political agendas. This was rather ironic in the face of the media frenzy that followed:
In the Daily Mail - Forget Venus-Mars: Men and women DO think alike
In the Telegraph - Do men and women really think alike?

I believe the existence of stereotypes can have profound influences on how our brains develop and so how we deal with everyday life. And that can apply to learning styles, self-esteem and self-confidence as much as much more basic sensory and cognitive skills. And I’m prepared to stick my head above the parapet and say so!

I don’t think science acadaemia is any more of a sexist sphere than anywhere else, although patronising attitudes can still exist. In Psychology, 85-90 per cent of the students are female, but the ratio is frequently reversed among psychology staff. This may be because there is a significant career structure for psychology graduates outside academia, although it may be a confidence and self-esteem issue. That said, there are many successful females in cognitive neuroscience (in all its manifestations).

The Rise of Women in Project Management: Meet Elaine Jackson

2010-10-21T19:08:00.000-07:00

The field of project management is still a male-dominated area. According to Patrick O'Brien author of The Rise of Women in Project Management, an increasing number of women are being drawn to the discipline.

Meet Elaine Jackson, PMP. She is CEO of PMP Interactive Consulting, Massachusetts. PMP Interactive Consulting is in the business of coaching project managers to successfully pass the PMP Certification Exam.

Elaine Jackson achieved her Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification in 2008 after she conducted several study group sessions for project managers employed at Hewlett Packard Company. She realized that employees needed to be encouraged to finish their PMP studies and to make advancements in their careers.

Elaine perfected the study process and achieved a level where her students pass the PMP exam on their 1st attempt. Her closing rate is 95%. She holds a BS degree in Biology from Marymount College, Tarrytown, NY. She recently completed an Entrepreneurial Business Training Program, and Clinical Project Management Training. She is on a speaking tour at various career development and technology driven events while she continues private and corporate coaching in Project Management Certification Exam Prep.

Fair-Wright: Do you think women have made significant strides in the Project management field?

Jackson: Women have made enormous strides but in my opinion - not enough.
This can be seen by the numbers and the breakdown of groups at (Project Management Institute) PMI meetings, professional conferences, and technology events.
The group is predominantly males, white, in the age group of 49-63 years old. Even in progressive times as we now live - the glass ceiling is higher and much much thicker. Individuals have to not only deserve the right to certain positions by education and constantly updated training , but they need mentor relationships that help make the steps to a successful career not so steep. I am not staying sexism exist - it certainly not as blatant at it was years ago ..because that open sexism ended up being too costly when one sues and wins... the same for racism and ageism. The process of exclusion appears to make the requirements more demanding and thus more people of age, race, and non-male orientations are being left to do massive training on their own to keep pace or drop out of the game. Unfortunately that pace takes much money and drive and ambition -- components many people appear to lack in this current economy. Younger individuals are getting much more training and coming to the new employer with all the tools to do a great job from day 1 .. and they are doing it at a lower salary. More young women are taking advantage of this wave and will be more visible and powerful in future years in an arena that was predominantly male.

Fair-Wright: You were with HP. What inspired you to go out and start your own business?

Jackson: I have always had the entrepreneurial spirit. I was always looking for ways to make work faster, fun, creative, easier, pain-free. I started with the company in 1994. The only reason I was excited to join such a great company (it was Digital Equipment Corporation at that time) was to live my dream to be a project specialist. I was the kid in school with all sorts of notes and papers and files - always wanting to organize things and take notes to keep track of the process. After waiting over 5 years - 10 years .. I realized my dream of a career was stuck and I fought very hard to re-invent my self and recapture what I knew were my strengths and to recapture my dream. I was never satisfied working for someone and having others make the rules and I follow like a drone. I always knew I had much to offer and I had much to add to the greatness of this world.

Fair-Wright: Where do you draw your inspiration from?

Jackson: My Dad was a no-nonsense type man. He never accepted excuses, was hard on all his children, and expected nothing but excellence. I hated having to prove I was better than the next person - but he was preparing me for the world as he new it 60 years ago. He and Mom always said "Don't ever let anyone tell you no - You Can Do Anything!". I still hear those words each time someone tries to put me down and break my spirit.

I know I am a good person and believe good things should happen to good people. So I am on my quest to build and encourage an awesome and rewarding career. When my students call and tell me they passed the PMP Exam -- I feel like I just gave birth to the next powerful PMP.

Fair-Wright: What is next for you?

Jackson: The path of new tips, new events, new materials is endless for me - after-all I need to make sure I retain my unique selling proposition when clients attempt to compare me to others in this field. I was a never a follow the leader person. I always went off and had my own creations and was always looking to make improvements.

September I will be the featured broadcast show on FATV station in Fitchburg, Massachusetts on program related to reinventing one's self,
Speaking at Roudenboush Community Center in January, Working with a great PMP coach Oliver Lehmann of Germany, Working with great business coach Anthony McGloin of Straight Forward Success of London, Working on teaming opportunities with others of similar success driven mentalities, Writing a PMP Manual,and continuing my training for corporations and for individual seeking the PMP Certification.
It was suggested I write a book in 2010 -- I am working on the title and material what will be a phenomenal undertaking.

Elaine Jackson’s mission is assisting Project Managers world-wide, in virtual and face-to-face environments, to be most ready for the PMP Certification Exam. Exploring and finding one’s next career opportunity after achieving the PMP Certification is a path that Elaine encourages of all her students. Many have reported 20K+ increase in salaries after achieving the PMP Certification.

Website: www.pmpicon.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ejackson21

An interview with Lea Kissner, Software Engineer at Google

2010-10-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

The following is a guest post written by Ginger Makela-Riker. Ginger is an Online Community Specialist at AORN - Association of PeriOperative Registered Nurses. Her Blog is Small Time

Tell me what do you do for Google.

I’m on the information security team at Google, and I do a combination of things.

I’m a software engineer; I work on infrastructure — making things run, making things work.

And I do security design reviews: people from all over the company e-mail me and say hey, I’m doing this cool new thing, can you tell me how to make it more secure.

I also work on privacy for Google, making sure information is anonymous and secure, and that we’re doing right by our users.

What degrees do you hold?

My undergrad degree is a B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from UC Berkeley. And I have a Ph.D from Carnegie Mellon in Computer Science.

What’s a typical day like for you at Google?

I bike in to work (my new bike is under 18 pounds and made of carbon fiber), and then get through all my e-mail. I help people out with their security problems, sometimes have meetings with them. I do some coding.

We work very collaboratively at Google, which is really great. I spend a lot of time with people figuring out what they need, figuring out what they want to do, to make sure what they want is to be secure.

How did you discover that you were interested in security?

I actually used to work in robotics. I did a lot of soldering, and I figured that sooner or later the solder fumes were going to eat my brain, and sooner or later my brain was going to come in handy. So I switched to cryptography because it involves a lot of theory, a lot of math, and it was really fun.

Crypto has lots and lots of really cool math in it. Crypto, security, and privacy have this advantage in that they’re really, really hard.

Partially because no one agrees what it means to be secure, what is means to be private, what math we should be using. And once you verbally agree to a definition of security, how do you write that down in terms of math? And then how do you use algorithms and mathematics to achieve that?

What fascinated you when you young?

Everything. I had the problem that I was interested in everything.

When I was 5 years old, I decided I was going to get my Ph.D. in Physics because that was when I was first introduced to liquid nitrogen.

I watched someone drop a rubber ball in liquid nitrogen, fish it out, and throw it on the floor and it shattered, and thought that is cool! And I thought, if becoming a physicist is what you have to do to get your hands on this stuff, that’s what I’m doing.

I wanted to be a veterinarian for while. And I wanted to be a history major, and I almost majored in history.

But I chose one of the things that I found most enjoyable and most difficult.

What were your favorite books growing up?

There was lots of reading, so that’s a very long list. I read everything that I could get my hands on.

There was one book that I found again recently called Emergence by David R. Palmer — it’s a book about an 11-year-old and her experience when someone sets off a biological weapon and kills most of the people in the US.

It turns out that there are some people who are transgenic: they have this mutation from their grandparents, who had gotten pregnant during the 1919 flu epidemic. So this transgenic group of people survives this biological attack and have to put society back together. And the Russians are trying to get them. I loved it.

Did you have anyone who influenced you growing up? Anyone you wanted to model yourself after?

Not really. My parents constantly told me: you could do whatever you want. You’re smart, you know how to do things, you can do whatever you find interesting. You shouldn’t worry what you should be doing. You should be thinking about what’s going to interest you down the line.

The woman that was always held up for me as a role model was Marie Curie. And I thought, great, she worked really hard, she did really interesting things, and she died of radiation poisoning, and I don’t want to do that.

What constitutes geekiness?

I’ve always been very geeky. Geekiness is not just a tech thing. Geekiness as I see it is passion.

Geekiness means you’re smart about something, you really love something, and you work really hard it. I’m really passionate about technology and bike riding.

Why do you think there’s been such a drop in women getting computer science degrees?

I know that not everyone has encountered this, but I’ve run into a lot of people who are very, very annoying about me being in computer science.

I’ve had people inappropriately hit on me, I’ve had people call me “little girl” (not at Google, mind you). I’ve run into a lot of negative things.

It’s interesting, I was part of an honor society at Berkeley, and we looked at the percentage of women who were in this honor society (membership was determined by GPA), and it was much higher than the percentage of women in the computer science program at the time.

What’s probably happening is that unless you’re really determined, and unless you’re really good at it, you’re much more likely to be dissuaded from getting into computer science. So you’re losing women who would be perfectly fine at computer science who may be very good at it, but who are turned off by some rather obnoxious behavior.

They may be turned off by the fact that every time you go places, you’re the representative of all womankind. That means, if someone doesn’t like you, all women are bad at computer science. I’ve run into a fair bit of annoyance from people.

But I’m very stubborn. The drop in computer science degrees for women is probably because it’s not easy.

What advice would you give young women who want to get into computer science?

First I have advice for anybody who wants to do just about anything: take a lot of math.

People who know what’s going on with the math can do everything else.

I have a Ph.D. in an extremely theoretical discipline. I wrote extremely theoretical papers, my math skills are what I had been working on. But when I first came to Google, I worked on really low-level coding infrastructure projects part of the time, and a lot of what’s given me the background to do that is not that I’m a coder — I’m not really a coder — but I have formal reasoning skills, I have the ability to look at things and see what’s happening on a high level.

You can see this in a lot of disciplines that the people who understand what’s going on with the math get to learn what’s going on with everything else — they have a much bigger box of tools to apply to any given situation.

It’s really about finding what you want, finding something that is so cool that you really want to play with it.

It’s not about just learning how to program, or learning about computers. Go and learn about philosophy, go and learn about sociology, go and learn about math — lots and lots of math — and all of these things come together, and they’re all useful.

You may end up working with privacy, in which case, knowing stuff about philosophical disciplines, knowing what things people say in literature are really, really helpful because it tells you a lot about how people think.

In terms of being a woman in computer science, you have to just realize that some people are idiots. And you’re unfortunately going to have to deal with some people being idiots.

When somebody says something stupid, women need to say something about it. I’m hoping that’s something people don’t have to do down the road, but that seems to be something we’re still dealing with.

Interview with Dr. Elaine Oran

2010-09-20T18:19:00.001-07:00

A MUST-hear interview with a female engineering veteran researcher, Dr. Elaine Oran.

Dr. Oran has over 40 years of experience working with computer simulation in the engineering industry. She is an author of an engineering textbook "Numerical Simulation of Reactive Flow" and a prestigious researcher at the Naval Research Lab.

In this interview with Masha Petrova, she shares with us her views on computer simulation and gives important advice to engineers thinking of becoming more involved with computer simulation and modeling. Listening to what this veteran expert has to say on the subject, is a MUST for any engineering professional.

Listen to this 25 minute interview on Masha Petrova's blog:

2010-05-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

A woman of many talents, Marisol Sarabia is as comfortable being an engineer as she is a dancer and entrepreneur.

Fair-Wright: What influenced you to become an civil engineer?

Sarabia: The Golden Gate Bridge influenced me. Some of my dance training was with the San Francisco Ballet. I performed with the company as a student when I was 16-17 years old. My family was very supportive and continued to guide my path back to education. I went back to school and got a year ahead in math. I love math and science; I was obsessed with the Golden Gate, so I put the two together.

Fair-Wright: How were you able to balance the 2 disciplines of dance and engineering?

Sarabia: I continued my training at the University of Texas, El Paso with artistic director Ingeborgh Heuser. During semesters I would take study breaks and run to ballet class or rehearsal. It got to the point where I had to pick between engineering internships or dancing as a guest artist in summer productions. I started working right away after graduation but continued as a guest artist when the opportunity was provided. I would rush to ballet class after work, if I didn’t make it to class, I would go to Pilates or jogging.

Fair-Wright: I know you recently became an entrepreneur with your own studio. Where did the idea for MaZi come from?

Sarabia: I’m fortunate that my sister was living the same lifestyle but in a different city. When we would visit each other we found ourselves sharing our new found fitness endeavors and continuing our ballet education with one another for hours. Each time we had new routines or exercises to show each other. It eventually got to the point where we realized we needed to immerse ourselves in our passion as a team. In October we opened MaZi Dance Fitness Centre in Chicago!

Fair-Wright: You have managed to have both a career in the arts and a career in the
sciences. What words of advice can you give to young women, who think they have to give up one for the other?

Sarabia: My entire life I have had that battle, always having to pick between them. My advice would be to give your passions a 100% for as long as possible. At some points you will need to take little breaks from one to focus on the other but jump back as quickly as possible. Do it all, and work hard, don’t have regrets. I would suggest having something to fall back on, like a college degree. No one can take that away from you, it can always be used as a stepping stone for something more, in the arts and beyond.

Fair-Wright: Now, here is the big question. What is next for you and for the company? Can we expect to see an exercise video on the market any time soon?

Sarabia: An exercise video would be great! Right now we are focusing on establishing our brand and providing clients with the best service possible to make MaZi reputable and provide a fun and inspiring alternative to “gym workouts”. As the months go on, we find that our hypothesis: people of all ages/levels love moving to good music in a supportive environment, is true. We hope to expand our studio space in the next year. My dream would be to expand across the US, MaZi Dance Fitness Centre, Houston here we come!

Society of Women Engineers Announces Hina Rehman as its 2010 Future Women Engineer Leader Award Recipient - Free-Press-Release.com

2010-02-19T17:09:00.000-08:00

Society of Women Engineers Announces Hina Rehman as its 2010 Future Women Engineer Leader Award Recipient - Free-Press-Release.com

From Engineer to Entrepreneur

2010-02-10T20:10:00.000-08:00

Have the urge to work for yourself but having trouble finding the time or the courage to start your own business? Read how Ellen Whitney successfully launched her own business.

I became an engineer because I was good in Math and Science so it was a natural choice.
I took a mechanical drawing class and thought about becoming a "drafter", but my guidance counselor advised me against it saying "There won't always be a need for drafters - someday computers will do all of that". _Ellen Whitney

Ellen is the co-owner of EPS Software Corp in Houston, Texas. As a senior software developer, she has specialized in the Software Development Lifecycle including analysis and design, implementation, quality assurance and testing of object-oriented, n-tier software systems since 1989. She is also an international author and is the Managing Editor of CoDe Magazine.

Fair-Wright: What aspect of the business are you the most proud of right now?

Whitney: That EPS Software has accomplished many things and stayed in business when many other computer companies have failed or gone out of business. We created CoDe Magazine from scratch to become "The Leading Independent Magazine for .NET developers". The fact that my partner and I have built the entire business without ever taking a loan is pretty cool too.

Fair-Wright: What are some of the obstacles you have had to overcome as a business owner?

Whitney: Owning a company is extremely stressful at times. There are clients who don't pay - not because they are unhappy with our services,but because they lost contracts, decided to move their business in a different direction etc.

Fair-Wright: What advice would you give to women who want to start their own company?

Whitney: It's harder (and there will be more costs) than you can imagine. But it's worth it.

Twila Day VP of IT & CIO SYSCO Corporation

2010-02-06T17:01:00.000-08:00

"You learn more when something goes wrong than when everything goes right."
~Twila Day of Sysco

As the former Alliance Director for Women In Technology International (WITI) Houston, I had the pleasure of meeting many executive officers in the local business community. There are quite a number of women in this world that I admire and I thought today would be a good day to share with you a short bio of Twila Day that I came across in CIO magazine.

Currently, as VP and CIO for the largest North American foodservice marketing and distribution organization, Twila Day directs SYSCO Corporation’s information technology organization including system operations, applications, strategy, planning, and data management of the enterprise. Since being appointed to her current position in 2005, she has been instrumental in creating the Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) architecture, provided vision for the Enterprise Data Warehouse, spearheaded the integration of proprietary systems with best-of-breed 3rd party software, and provided leadership in the transition of the traditional broadline companies away from a decentralized operating environment to a centralized hosted operation.

Previously, Day progressed rapidly within SYSCO to senior director of Applications and Development. Throughout her career at SYSCO, she has been intimately involved with an in-house developed multimillion dollar ERP project which has allowed SYSCO’s operating companies to increase productivity and efficiency while setting the stage for strategic supply chain initiatives. Prior to SYSCO, Day advanced through the IT organizations of several small companies.

Twila Day received the 2003 Leadership in Technology Award from the Association of Women in Computing. She is a member of Association for Women in Computing, Women in Technology Industries, and Women in Foodservice Forum. Day holds a BA degree from Our Lady of the Lake University.

Talking with Danielle Forget-Shield

2009-12-16T17:07:00.000-08:00

Danielle Forget, PE, MBA, is the President and Chief Executive Officer of 825 Basics, LLC.

May 2008 interview with Danielle Forget-Shield, co-author of Exceeds Expectations, is presented. Forget has been providing entertaining and useful presentations for over 10 years. She also has experience in workshop development, career coaching and organizational management. Her excitement comes from experience in implementing the methods she teaches and seeing those she has mentored successfully navigate their careers.

Forget received her BS in Civil Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and her MBA from the University of St. Thomas in Houston. Forget most recently served as the Director of Engineering & Environmental Compliance for a medium sized publicly traded company where she was responsible for developing, implementing and overseeing programs.

Fair-Wright: At what point in your career did you realize that training and coaching was the direction that you wanted to take?

Forget: I knew what I wanted out of my career. And that really gave me the confidence to stand out and move ahead quickly. I decided to take something I’d been doing as a volunteer group leader and make it into a business. I remember there were five of us who were just sitting around a kitchen in 1995 during a conference and somebody suggested that l should think about starting a business.

Fair-Wright: Have you ever thought about writing a book about your experiences?

Forget: Yes, Tricia Berry, who is my partner at 825 Basics, and I played with the idea. With Tricia and I both working full time, we really haven’t had the opportunity to do that. Our primary focus has to be getting the business off the ground first.

Fair-Wright: What is the most important area to focus on in a business partnership?

Forget: Open communications and trust - Tricia and I are both very blunt and if we don’t like something we are going to say we don't like it because why bother tiptoeing around. We're not afraid to say, “I don't like that.”

I would say that another plus in our relationship is that we both live by our number one basic principle, know yourself. And because we do know ourselves and we know what we want. We are driven by the same goals and this is basically to share with others principles we have learned in our careers, so they can benefit from our combined knowledge. There are so many people who don't belong to an organization like SWE. SWE offers its members an opportunity to learn how to prosper in the workplace.

Fair-Wright: Do you think there's a cultural gap between the new generation and older generations that needs to be bridged somehow?

Forget: I don't know about a culture gap, there is a lot of buzzwords these days about gender communications and there is a lot of stuff going around about meshing the genders in the workplace.

One of the big things being said about this new, younger generation is that they feel entitled. As if, they are owed something simply for showing up to work. But, I really think it's just a matter of miscommunication because what we have always understood to be acceptable business practices is not necessarily what their understanding is of acceptable business practices.

I don't think the people in the fifties were better communicators, or had more leadership, or management ability than this generation now. Those things were simply more defined back then.

825 provides workshops in corporate self-assessments, peer coaching, and career action planning. The mission of 825 Basics is to provide superior training and coaching to students and professionals.
825 Basics Website

Drew Gilpin Faust

2009-11-30T09:41:00.000-08:00

Meet Drew Gilpin Faust, the first female president of what some consider the top university in the US. After 371 years, since its founding, and a bonfire of criticism of its previous president Lawrence Summers, who suggested that women's lack of ability explained why less women than men are at the top in math and science in the educational arena -- Harvard chose a woman to lead it into the 21st century.

Who is this woman?

According to the NY Times (02/10/07), Dr. Faust, is author of five books, a former professor of history and women's studies at the University of Pennsylvania and is the Dean of the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies, the remains of Radcliffe College, which once upon a time was the women's college at Harvard. The article in the TIMES indicated that "much of the research sponsored by the Institute emphasizes the study of women, gender and society."

The Times article goes on to report that those familiar with the Harvard search said that Dr. Faust's leadership style includes a collaborative approach with excellent people skills which will serve the university well during a particularly tumultuous time following Dr. Summers' aggressive leadership style.

While acknowledging Dr. Faust as an outstanding scholar, the article said that she is an excellent administrator, with a management style that builds consensus. Now that Ivy League schools (women are now leading four) are realizing the benefits of women's leadership style.

Office of the President - Harvard University
http://www.president.harvard.edu

Interview with Dr. Reagan D. Flowers (Houston)

2009-11-23T10:17:00.001-08:00

Reagan Flowers - CEO & President

Dr. Reagan D. Flowers is the founder, president and chief executive of C-STEM Teacher & Student Support Services, Inc., a Houston-based, non-profit organization that creates educational opportunities in communications, science, technology, engineering and mathematics. She has been in the education field for more than a decade as a teacher, guidance counselor, dean of students and school improvement facilitator, and has worked with students ranging from elementary to high school levels. Reagan earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Texas Southern University, a master’s in counseling from Prairie View A&M University and a doctorate in interdisciplinary studies from Union Institute and University.

It has been over two years since I last did an interview with Dr. Reagan Flowers. Her name should be important to you and everyone in the Houston science community, especially those involved in the education. Flowers is affiliated with the National Science Teacher Association and has won numerous award including ASME’s Ross Kaster Award 2005, the NASA's FIRST Featherweight Award in 2000, NASA's FIRST Judge's Award in 2002, Who's Who Among America's Teachers in 2001 and 2002, and SECME Master Teacher in 1999.

QUESTIONS

Fair-Wright: How did you become involved in C-STEM?

Flowers: After 6 years working as a high school science teacher turned guidance counselor at Jack Yates High School, I accepted a Dean of Student’s position at West Briar Middle School. When I accepted the position I had no idea that the robotics program I had created at the high school would leave with me. On August 12, 2002, frustrated with the high schools inability to see the value in continuing the work I started, I put into action a non-profit organization, C-STEM Teacher and Student Support Services, Inc. The driving force in the development of C-STEM (communication, science, technology, engineering, mathematics) was to implement and sustain hands-on project-base learning in schools regardless of teacher or administrative changes. There is no cost to teachers or students to receive C-STEM services. Our focus is on providing teachers and students with quality programs, curriculum, and/or projects that are innovative and excite children about learning STEM PreK-12.

Fair-Wright: What aspect of C-STEM are you the most proud of right now?

Flowers: I am most proud of our most recent project that we developed. It is the first ever Shell Schlumberger Sea Turtle Robotics Competition. This project has allowed C-STEM to work with schools using a feeder pattern concept and provides us with a platform for elementary, middle, and high schools within zoned neighborhoods. Each feeder pattern works as a team, collaborate and share resources to maximize opportunities to improve communication, science, technology, engineering, mathematics, English, and art skills through an interdisciplinary project for students. The feeder pattern design methodology of the Shell Schlumberger Sea Turtle Robotics Competition is a bottom-up approach to closing the achievement gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Another component of this competition is the integration of Art and Engineering. The theme for this event is “Everyone is an artist and an Engineer.” The students are actually painting and designing aluminum sea turtle sculptures and a bill board public service announcement to bring awareness to our endangered sea turtle, the Kemp’s Ridley. The students are also designing and building robots, completing a news article about their experience, and a PowerPoint presentation over the feeder patterns experience.

Fair-Wright: Has the local community been supportive?

Flowers: The Local community has been supportive of C-STEM programming which has allowed us to extend our outreach in 2007 to provide support services to over 40 schools. Our current partners are Shell, Schlumberger, ASME IPTI, BTS, Texas Southern University, Texas A & M Galveston, Sea Turtle Restoration Project, Robot Agency, MOCAH; Houston, Fort Bend, Aldine, and Richardson Independent School District.

Fair-Wright: Where do you see opportunities for improvement in local community support programs?

Flowers: I see opportunities for improvement in local community support programs with connecting with state initiatives. In order for local community support programs to gain momentum and make greater impacts with “changing the way we think” as it relates to educating children and closing the STEM achievement gaps, we must do more to involve community support programs that are grassroots and getting positive results.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact

C-STEM Teacher & Student Support Services, Inc.
3226 Alabama Street
Houston, TX, 77004
Phone: (713) 443-4521
Fax: (713) 748-7454
E-mail: info@cstem.org

Astronomers and Stars

2009-11-01T20:57:00.000-08:00

Dorothea Klumpke Roberts achieved many firsts in her career as an astronomer: She earned the first Prix des Dames from the Astronomical Society of France; she was the first woman elected as an officer by the Paris Academy of Sciences; the first woman awarded a D.Sc. degree in mathematics from the Sorbonne; and the first woman to make airborne astronomical observations. She ensured the continuation of her legacy of excellence in astronomy by endowing the Dorothea Klumpke Roberts Prize Fund with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Roberts was born on August 9, 1861, in San Francisco, California. Her father, a German immigrant named John Gerard Klumpke, had moved the family west to cash in on the California Gold Rush by selling his handmade boots for the astronomical price of $100. Her mother, Dorothea Matilda Tolle, believed in equal educational opportunities for her five daughters as for her two sons, so she sent her children to the finest European schools in Germany, Switzerland, and France. Dorothea's four sisters thrived on this intellectual stimulation: Anna became an artist and the biographer of Rosa Bonheur; Julia became a concert violinist and composer; Matilda became a pianist; and Augusta became a neurologist. Dorothea also thrived, first in the study of languages and ultimately in the study of mathematical astronomy at the University of Paris, where she earned her B.S. degree in 1886.

The Paris Observatory hired Roberts in 1887 to measure the positions of stars on photographic plates. This project took on increased importance after the International Astronomical Congress agreed at its Paris meeting to generate a Carte du Ciel, or Chart of the Heavens, cataloging all stars to the 11th magnitude after photographing the entire sky. Roberts drew on her previous study of languages to translate the proceedings and papers from the conference into French, and she continued to catalog star measurements from photographs. The excellence of her work prompted the Paris Observatory to choose her over 50 male applicants as director of the Bureau of Measurement, created in 1891 to oversee the photographic star measurements contributed to the Carte du Ciel project. She retained this position until 1901.

In 1889, the Astronomical Society of France awarded its first Prix des Dames to Roberts. In 1893, she achieved two more firsts: The Paris Academy of Sciences elected her as its first woman Officier; and on December 14, she became the first woman to earn a doctor of science degree in mathematics from the University of Paris. For her dissertation topic, she took up the unfinished work of Sofia Kovalevskaia—a mathematical study of the rings of Saturn. Also in 1893, Roberts's paper on astronomical mapping won a $300 prize from the French Academy of Sciences at the World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago.

On November 16, 1899, Roberts became the first woman to make airborne astronomical observations when the Société Français de Navigation Aérienne appointed her to the team that launched in a balloon to observe the Leonid meteor showers. The balloon La Centaure reached an altitude of 1,640 feet, where the team observed 24 meteors, 11 of them Leonid meteors.

In 1901, Roberts married the 72-year-old astronomical photography pioneer Isaac Roberts and moved into his English estate in Crowborough, Sussex. The two worked collaboratively in the observatory he had built and equipped with a 20-inch reflector and camera until his 1904 death. Roberts continued their work and, in 1929, published Isaac Roberts' Atlas of 52 Regions, A Guide to William Herschel's Fields of Nebulosity. In 1932, the French Academy of Sciences awarded Roberts its Helene-Paul Helbronner Prize for this work.

In 1934, the Legion of Honor recognized her 48 years of service to French astronomy by electing her a chevalier; and the president of France honored her with the Cross of the Legion. In 1937, Roberts endowed the Dorothea Klumpke Roberts Prize Fund with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific to award support to outstanding astronomy and mathematics students at the University of California at Berkeley, an extension of the Klumpke-Roberts Lecture Fund that she had already established.

Dorothea Klumpke Roberts died in San Francisco on October 5, 1942. In 1974, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific transformed the Klumpke-Roberts Lecture Fund into the Dorothea Klumpke-Roberts Award "for outstanding contributions to education or popularization in astronomy." Recipients have included Helen Sawyer Hogg in 1983 and Heidi Hammel in 1995.

From: Encyclopedia of World Scientists, Revised Edition.

The Smartest Gal in the Room: Rosalind Franklin

2009-07-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

James Watson and Francis Crick, were working to determine the structure of DNA. When Watson was shown a fine X-Ray photograph that Rosalind Franklin had made in 1952. When Watson saw the photo, he wrote later, "my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race." 50 years later and after Franklin's death from cancer, Watson attributed his success to the fact the he and Crick worked well together, each man filling the knowledge gaps necessary to their complicated quest. Rosalind, he said never needed to partner that was her strength and her weakness.

After her death, Watson and Crick made abundantly clear in public lectures that they could not have discovered the structure of DNA without her work. However, because the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously, Rosalind Franklin could not be cited for her essential role in the discovery of the physical basis of genetic heredity.

Rosalind Franklin discovered the helical structure of DNA has two strands, not three as proposed in competing theories. She gave quantitative details about the shape and size of the double helix. The all-important missing piece of the puzzle, that she could not discover from her data, was how the bases paired on the inside of the helix, and thus the secret of heredity itself. That discovery remained for Watson and Crick to make.

Watson and Crick had insights beyond the evidence in Franklin's photograph. But science historian Horace Freeland Judson has written that they "absolutely had to have the information" in the photograph in order to solve the puzzle of DNA.

Born in July of 1920, Rosalind Franklin graduated with a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1945. In 1951, she went to work as a research associate for John Randall at King's College in London. A chemist by training, Franklin had established herself as a world expert in the structure of graphite and other carbon compounds before she moved to London.

In James Watson's account of the discovery of the structure of DNA, entitled The Double Helix, Rosalind Franklin was depicted inaccurately as an underling of Maurice Wilkins at King's College. In fact, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin were peers. Franklin had discovered that DNA could crystallize into two different forms, an A form and a B form. John Randall gave Franklin the A form and Wilkins the B form, assigning them each the task of elucidating their molecular structure.

Rosalind Franklin never knew that Watson and Crick had gotten access to her results. At the time of the Watson and Crick publication and afterwards, Franklin appears not to have been bitter about their accomplishment. In her own publications about DNA structure, she agreed with their essential conclusions but remained skeptical about some details of their model. Franklin moved on to work on an even more challenging problem: the structure of an entire virus, called the Tobacco Mosaic Virus.

Her subsequent publications on this topic would include four more papers in the journal Nature. Rosalind Franklin was friendly with both James Watson and Francis Crick, and communicated regularly with them until her life and career were cut short by cancer in April of 1958, at the age of 37. She died with a reputation around the world for her contributions to knowledge about the structure of carbon compounds and of viruses.

Adapted from: accessexcellence.org/RC/AB/BC/Rosalind_Franklin.php

Resources:

www.accessexcellence.org/AB/BC/Rosalind_Franklin.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin
http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/franklin.html

Dr. Irene Carswell Peden: Kansas to Antarctica

2009-04-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

"Now, Miss Carswell, you're about to get your electrical engineering degree and you need to realize that you will have great value as a secretary to an engineer."

~ Chairman (University of Colorado) speaking to Irene Carswell Peden on her graduation (1947)

Despite the Navy's protest on transporting a woman to frigid Antarctica, Irene became legend as the first American woman to reach the polar ice pack. Wrapped in a not so fashionable parka, she performed a ground breaking study on radio wave propagation through the ice. It gets better. The experiments she conducted had never been done before, so she had to develop the methodology AND the math equations to interpret the data.

September 25, 1925 - Topeka, Kansas: A little girl is born to a country school teacher and an automotive worker, they name her Irene. Irene has an innate ability for the sciences, but that fire smolders until high school. When Irene takes a Chemistry class the flames ignite, she burns through Physics and Mathematics. Eventually the flames heat up the University of Colorado and Peden graduates with an Electrical Engineering (EE) degree - she is now officially a double “E”.

Peden describes looking for a job after graduation as the hardest thing she had ever done in life. It never occurred to her to take a job other engineering. Two years at Delaware Power and Light Company, four more at the Aircraft Radio Systems Laboratory (Stanford Research Institute), Peden is finally promoted to the position of research engineer at Stanford. She completes a Masters degree in 1958. Irene seems to flourish in academia and she goes on to become the first women to receive a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford in 1962.

Opportunity knocks and Irene moved up and on to the University of Washington. Assistant professor Peden walked the hallowed halls of higher education alone as the only woman on the faculty. Undaunted, she hangs in there reaching full professorship in 1971. By 1986, she has arrived as the associate chair of the electrical engineering department. However, Irene is underpaid and losing patience with "the boys", so she sues the University for Sexual Discrimination.
In 1970, our ambitious Electrical Engineer received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study radio waves in Antarctica and the rest is history. Peden received the Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award in 1973. She served as the director of the Division of Electrical and Communications Systems at the NSF for over two years.

Who is Thelma Estrin?

2009-03-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

She is an American success story. A survivor of the "good ole boy" network and a downright spectacular woman. Founder and director of the Data Processing Laboratory for the Brain Research Institute of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Estrin pioneered digital techniques for recording the impulse firing patterns of neurons. She translated brain signals into digital data. How cool is that!

Born on February 21, 1924, in New York City as Thelma Austern, she married Gerald Estrin at the ripe age of 17. Thelma became a war bride and to support the war effort, she was sent to an intensive engineering assistant course at the Stevens Institute of Technology. Afterwards, she worked at the Radio Receptor Company. She continued her education at the University of Wisconsin, where she received a degree in electrical engineering. An intelligent woman swimming in a sea of returning GIs. Thlema was unable to find work with her degree. RCA actually turned her down because they lacked a woman's bathroom.

The Estrins went overseas and later returned in 1955. Husband, Gerald was able to grab a faculty appointment at UCLA. Thelma went to work for the medical school. "In 1961, she inaugurated the UCLA Brain Research Institute's first general-purpose computer facility. Called the Data Processing Laboratory, Estrin's brainchild was the first integrated computer laboratory that was specifically intended to create computer technology for neurological research."

Thelma eventually became a full professor at UCLA's School of Engineering and Applied Science. She later took leave to serve as director of the National Science Foundation's division of Electrical, Computing, and System Engineering. Estrin retired in 1991, becoming professor-in-residence in the computer science department at UCLA. I like to think of her as the Angelina Jolie of biomedical computing. Mind boggling smart and tough, she grabbed the world by its misogynistic tail and shook it. Hats off to you Thelma! Well done.

The 1st licensed female M.D. in the Western world

2009-03-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

When I was a little girl, my life was rich in one way. Imagination. I read books late into the night. I read books until my eyes burn and roadmaps of red crawled across the white. It was the same redness that you see in the eyes of college students, who are cramming the hours away. There is one book that surfaces ever so often in my chaotic consciousness. That book is a Young Adult reader called Elizabeth Blackwell MD. I remember the book had a black cover with a picture of a stern looking woman. The woman was Elizabeth. Her hair in a tight and well controlled bun, she did not look like a woman who could challenge the medical community and set a new standard for women.

What is amazing about Blackwell is that she not only broke the gender barrier but was influential in the lives of women physicians for generations to come. By founding the New York Infirmary, she brought about a social reform and challenged doctors to provide medical services to the poor. This was her life's work until her death at the age of 89 in 1910.

Blackwell was born in Bristol, England, in 1821. She came from a family of religious activists and social reformers. After teaching for several years, she decided to try her hand at medicine. In 1847, rejected by Harvard, Yale, and many other colleges, she was finally accepted at Geneva College in upstate New York. They accepted her because they thought it was a "joke".

Once she was admitted they had no choice but to let her continue. Disliked and ostracized by her male classmates, Elizabeth endured. This was for me an awakening. She succeeded because she would not quit. It taught me the power of human will. In 1848, after doing well at Geneva College, she followed with a year's residency at Philadelphia Hospital. According to Blackwell, "the young resident physicians, unlike their chief, were not friendly. When I walked in, they walked out." Blackwell was awarded a degree in 1849.

She continued her education in Europe, but later returned to America and in 1853 Blackwell opened a clinic for poor women and children. Blackwell added a medical college, the Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary, to the clinic in 1868. This was a major training hospital for future generations of women physicians.

ExxonMobil Girls in Engineering Festival

2009-02-15T00:20:00.000-08:00

When I volunteered to help at the festival, I knew it would be fun. With 200 girls scheduled, I had prepared flyers and reviewed the material that I had saved from various lectures and seminars over the years. The girls did not disappoint.

"What do engineers do?” I asked the eager faces surrounding my booth. The answers they returned were the standard.

“They build things” “Engineers do math” “They make cell phones” “They build bridges”

We had one girl shout out, “They do something with pipes!“ I turned to the young Mechanical Engineer next to me. “She thinks we are plumbers”. We both laughed.

I explained about the various jobs Engineers do. The girls were surprised to learn that as a Software Engineer, I could be part of a team that programs smart buildings, cars, cell phones, or hospital equipment. It made me realize how far the industry has changed.

The girls enjoyed the question and answer games we had created, giving them prizes for the right answers. It was all good until UH arrived with their LEGO MINDSTORMS robots. The girls eyes grew wide and our booth was quickly deserted. But, I am glad we were able to interact with all the girls before the “entertainment” arrived.

Several girls seem to keep coming back. Silent and serious, my returners did not wish to engage in conversation they seem content just to be nearby. I think these were my future engineers. Perhaps they were looking for validation, a role model to tell them it is okay to be “different” …to be good in math and science. It is okay to play games timing each other as to how FAST you can solve the Rubik's cube. It is okay to be a nerd. Or perhaps it was to sneak sly glances at the young engineer next to me with her fashion model beauty and stellar IQ. Perhaps they saw the stereotype unhinge about women engineers and maybe they began to realize the possibilities.

Great Women In Science

2009-02-06T23:15:00.000-08:00

When I decided to create a workshop centered on the history of women in science, I knew it had to "fun". I remember the dry history lessons force fed to me at St. Agnes. I wanted to make these women's accomplishments come to life. As I researched, I was astounded by the the number of women, who had been marginalized by history. Their accomplishments thinned into a white veil of smoke. It is hard for us in 2009 to imagine not being able to own property, attend college, or even vote. Some women had to publish patents in their husband names. Reading about their lives was like opening a neatly wrapped box containing a "Handmaid's Tale" of intellectual poverty.