By Gabriella Bancheri
As a writer typically surrounded by leaders and professionals within the arts, I rarely get to speak with brilliant women in STEM. Last week, however, I had the opportunity to chat with two very passionate women from the South Jersey STEM & Innovation Partnership (SJSIP) who kindly shared their wealth of industry knowledge.
Michelle Stella Riordan, Atlantic County SJSIP Lead, and Pavithra Lakshminarayan, South Jersey SJSIP Lead, shared their insight on SJSIP’s recent network meeting and the organization, including initiatives and upcoming events.
On Friday, March 8, SJSIP held a network meeting via Zoom, which included various professionals in STEM. Some attendees included Laura Norkute, the Director of Water Quality and Environmental Compliance at NJ American Water, Lexi Reynolds, Atlantic Offshore Winds Cable Lead, and many more.
With a focus on the theme “Women in STEM,” the goal of the meeting was to “expose community partners to these successful corporate women with jobs in STEM,” Pavi explained. The aim was to show how they “light their path” to get to where they are today and hopefully expose new and alternate routes to STEM careers to enlighten community leaders.
Pavi’s words, ever concise and informative, are the most efficient in explaining the goal for the meeting: “to bring awareness and foster interest” to both broaden participation and make sure that, in the future, there will be more women in STEM.
Ultimately, industry leaders in the community shared their journeys and aimed to demystify some of the misconceptions of STEM: it isn’t just medicine and coding, and not all paths to success (or people) in STEM look the same. So many other career paths are available, from aeronautics to environmental and beyond, and the organization aims to encourage young hopefuls from all backgrounds to pursue their interests.
About SJSIP
SJSIP is one of 96+ STEM ecosystems across the globe and one of seven in New Jersey alone. The organization’s primary goal is to foster the future of STEM talent and create a diverse and talented workforce, and many initiatives are implemented to serve that goal.
There are six priority areas, or “pillars,” as Pavi calls them, on which SJSIP centers its initiatives: equity, STEM engagement, STEM workforce, STEM identity, and STEM education continuum. Through a combination of these focus areas, the goal is to create pathway programs from pre-K to post-secondary, which encourage young individuals to enter the STEM workforce.
SJSIP even collects data using BEAR Data Solutions to evaluate attitudes toward STEM and implement strategic plans to help spark interest in the field.
By hosting workshops in partnership with large companies like Cisco and developing programs focusing on hands-on experience, SJSIP team leaders hope to gradually increase the number of young people interested in STEM and diversify STEM leadership.
In addition to these efforts, SJSIP hosts plenty of initiatives to get students directly involved, including a Communities Challenge, launched in 2019, in which high school students identify a practical solution to a problem in their community. First-place winners are awarded $2,500, and second and third-place winners are awarded up to $1,500.
Although the initiative was launched at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization and students saw this as an opportunity to identify solutions to the problem as a whole, proving that small community initiatives can extend beyond the boundaries of their small community walls.
The main reason for these very hands-on initiatives is to get students involved when they may otherwise be intimidated by the idea of participating in seemingly complicated STEM projects and to give young minds the confidence to move forward in these careers.
PAL STEM in EHT has started a research group for high school students to work with Rutgers University professors. Students in these groups have not only gained the opportunity for some college insight and preparation, but they’ve also gained access to technology such as underwater drones, allowing students to provide high-res images alongside their research conducted below sea level.
Michelle has also been using her influence at PAL STEM of EHT to open up and encourage a variety of STEM possibilities. “It’s very robotic-centric,” Michelle shared, so she’s been trying to push for additional pathways so there are more options for the kids.
Some other events:
On Monday, March 18, students were slated to showcase their research and work to policymakers at the NJ State House Annex in Trenton. On Friday, March 29, Cyber Day will be hosted at ACC and focused on cybersecurity, AI, and game design.
Some other upcoming events include an in-person meeting on April 19 at Rowan University and the PAL EHT STEM Expo on Tuesday, March 26. The conference will address workforce needs with more community leaders, including teachers, counselors, and nonprofits, and the Expo will feature the AC Boys and Girls Club students’ work in robotics and several craft vendors.
Expos like this one mainly allow students to show off their work, ask questions where their interest is piqued, and “really see what’s out there,” as Michelle explained.
The team behind this work is passionate about what they do and the future of STEM. During our incredibly informative chat, Pavi and Michelle expressed the importance for young children to have great industry role models, stressing the specific importance of young girls seeing successful women represented in the STEM field they’re interested in.
The organization conducted an engagement measurement before a challenge hosted by SJSIP to introduce students to STEM pathways, and it was found that 50% of children who expressed interest in STEM were from underrepresented communities. At the end of the challenge, another was conducted, and 86% of these children expressed both confidence and possibility in STEM. What’s more is that to ensure continued engagement and a variety of field options, SJSIP changes the challenges every year.
“Moving the needle is an incremental thing,” Pavi explained. It’s the participation in and facilitating of initiatives like these that work to expand the extent and quality of STEM interest and representation.
With its initiatives and community engagement, SJSIP is continually pushing to pave paths that foster STEM advancement and create meaningful solutions—not only within the communities its ecosystems serve but beyond—to put South Jersey on the STEM talent map and encourage the young minds of our future.
Gabriella is a Ventnor City resident and graduate of the University of London with an MA in Creative Writing and Publishing. Her writing is featured in a variety of digital publications ranging from food and beverage to literature to ecotourism.
