蘑菇传媒

Women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields have long been overlooked in the celebration of discoveries and breakthroughs by men. For example, Alan Shepard was the first American to travel into space, and John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth. But it was Katherine Johnson鈥檚 mathematical work and analysis that enabled those achievements.

It wouldn鈥檛 be until  that women鈥檚 vital role in American history would be officially recognized. In 1978, California鈥檚 Education Task Force of the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women held a Women鈥檚 History Week celebration. Successful lobbying by the National Women鈥檚 History Project鈥攏ow the National Women鈥檚 History Alliance鈥攑rompted President Jimmy Carter to issue the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the week of March 2鈥�8, 1980, as National Women鈥檚 History Week. Finally, in 1987 Congress passed a law designating March as Women鈥檚 History Month.

蘑菇传媒 strives to recognize and celebrate the women in our community, and throughout this month will highlight just a few of the many who have contributed so much. With a focus on technology-infused undergraduate and graduate degree programs, we are starting with women in STEM.

The National Girls Collaborative Project reports that women make up just  of the science and engineering workforce, but our institution seeks to buck that trend. Here are highlights of six 蘑菇传媒 women paving the way for future women in STEM.

Students With a Dream

Before she was a graduate student at 蘑菇传媒,听Talise Geer听spent 10 years working in sales and longing for a career that she truly loved. Now, the Vanguard Student Recognition Award recipient (awarded to Geer during her time at Suffolk Community College for her academic excellence in a field where her gender is underrepresented) is earning her master鈥檚 degree in听cybersecurity听and hopes to inspire other women to pursue careers in cybersecurity.

鈥淭he Vanguard award will hopefully let girls know that we can do difficult things and no gender has a monopoly in any profession,鈥� says Geer, who hopes to open her own cybersecurity firm. 鈥淚 want women who are in dead-end jobs to rethink a career in cybersecurity.鈥�

Sibel Sezen听grew up in a village in Turkey where 鈥渨omen and education were not given much importance.鈥� However, she became the first woman to study in her village’s university, and she has been making strides ever since. Recognized as the highest academic achiever in听interdisciplinary studies听on the New York City campus, Sezen has continued her studies at 蘑菇传媒 and is pursuing a master鈥檚 degree in听data science, whereafter she hopes to become a data scientist. Believing that possible uses for data analysis are limitless, 鈥渢hings that seemed impossible years ago can make life easier today in a very short time. Data science operations do the impossible,鈥� she says.

Adina Tsibulevskiy听earned a special distinction in 2022鈥攕he was the first beneficiary of the听Nada Anid Scholarship Fund, established on behalf of the late Vice President and former College of Engineering and Computing Sciences Dean Nada Anid, Ph.D. The scholarship fund supports Tsibulevskiy as a woman in STEM, with her earning a bachelor鈥檚 degree in听electrical and computer engineering听with a minor in听mathematics. She dreams to be become a practicing engineer in a leadership position, as well as a mentor for female engineering students.

鈥淚 am one of the only women in the engineering spaces. It can feel a bit intimidating sometimes,鈥� says Tsibulevskiy of the male-dominated subject she is studying. 鈥淎s a woman in STEM, it is rare to come across a visible female role model to take inspiration and learn from. I am motivated to stick with my engineering path and hopefully be another young woman鈥檚 role model one day.鈥�

Faculty Who Inspire

Assistant Professor of听Biological and Chemical Sciences听Jacqueline Keighron, Ph.D., performs听scientific research听centered around how cells communicate with each other. Specifically, how neurotransmitters that relay signals from one cell to the next change when the brain is exposed to substances of abuse like cocaine. On the technology side of things, Keighron is working with colleagues across disciplines to incorporate virtual reality (VR) into some of 蘑菇传媒鈥檚 courses鈥攐ne such outcome is interactive 3-D models of molecules biochemistry students are studying in the lab. Most recent for Keighron is the Summer Reactor, a program designed to introduce and provide a head start on college-level chemistry to incoming first-year students.

Yanhua (Jennifer) Xie, Ph.D., an associate professor of biomedical sciences at NYITCOM-Arkansas, secured NYITCOM-Arkansas鈥櫶齠irst grant听from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2020鈥攁 $428,400 multi-year grant to determine whether Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment can help relieve migraine headaches.听Most recently, Xie partnered with Arkansas State University Assistant Professor Jianfeng (Jay) Xu, Ph.D., to develop a new class of low-cost, effective plant cell-produced oral biologic drugs to treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Xie is contributing her expertise related to pharmacology and animal studies in collaboration with Xu, who is producing plant-based biologics. This research is made possible by yet another NIH grant. Xie, whose research overall focuses on seeking new, non-opioid compounds with fewer side effects as well as non-pharmacological treatments to help patients with pain conditions, says her interest in human neuroscience stems from being told in college that biomedical research is among the hardest to perform, especially when related to the human brain.

Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering听Maryam Ravan, Ph.D., is听aiming to address听neurological and psychiatric conditions using algorithms and other technological techniques, like artificial intelligence. Ravan鈥檚 studies, founded on engineering principles, propose there are possible approaches that could provide clinicians with non-invasive solutions and more effective treatments. One such approach uses electroencephalography鈥檚 (EEG) ability to measure electrical activity鈥攂rain waves鈥攐n a seizure patient鈥檚 scalp. Current software models that process EEG brain wave data have a high margin of error when pinpointing seizure origin in the brain and do not account for many variables.

With Ravan鈥檚 expertise, the research team developed a new algorithm called 鈥淩eLORETA,鈥� which, with its ability to account for variables like head geometry, was able to decrease the seizure origin margin of error from 35.09 millimeters to just 5.65 millimeters鈥攁 difference of 29.44 millimeters.