STEM Pathways - NYAS

A graph showing 67% of manufacturing employers report that they are unable to fill technical jobs for mid-skilled employees.

This comprehensive report answers the recent paradoxical question: if we’re graduating record numbers of STEM students, why are STEM jobs still unfilled?

Published January 26, 2015

By Stacy-Ann Ashley

Today the New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy) released a new report, “The Global STEM Paradox,” in an effort to better define the state of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and careers worldwide.

The report paints a shocking picture of the state of STEM education across the world: 67% of manufacturing employers in the United States report that they are unable to fill technical jobs for mid-skilled employees, while women represent less than 30% of the world’s science researchers. Furthermore, in the United States, people of color represent only 10% of STEM employees.

The Academy’s report demonstrates that while there are sufficient numbers of graduates in STEM, employers still report difficulty in filling STEM jobs – the global STEM paradox. The report identifies areas of concern that contribute to employers’ challenges: low numbers of graduates who have the skills needed to match actual job requirements, “brain drain” from developing countries, and the lack of women and people of color in STEM fields. The report also highlights a global disconnect between the developed and developing worlds, with mid and high-skill STEM jobs available in the Global South, but most of the candidates available to fill them living in the West.

“If we want to solve the global STEM paradox, we need to change the way we think about STEM education and careers worldwide, ” says Meghan Groome, PhD, Executive Director of Education at the Academy. “It’s not enough to churn out a small army of PhDs from our top institutions. We need a new class of skilled technicians, we need home-grown scientists in the developing world, and we need to make women and people of color feel welcome in STEM fields.”

Combatting the STEM Paradox

To combat the STEM paradox, the Academy recently launched the Global STEM Alliance of The New York Academy of Sciences (GSA), a worldwide partnership with governments, companies, NGOs, universities and schools to improve student access to STEM mentors and tools. At the UN in September, the GSA announced that it is investing millions of dollars in order to inspire over 1,000,000 children worldwide to become STEM leaders in more than 100 countries by 2020.

At the UN event, members of the Alliance proposed a solution to the STEM paradox: an ecosystem of government policies, strategic business incentives, and innovative Web-based and one-to-one and one-to-many mentoring approaches that, together, create the necessary incentives for students to seek, acquire, and employ STEM skills.

“In order to place STEM graduates in areas where they’ll be most effective, we need a global STEM ecosystem that can educate the next generation of STEM leaders to confront the biggest challenges of our time-climate change, malnutrition, global epidemics-through cross-generational, transnational collaboration,” says Groome.

The GSA launched with several Founding Partners: ARM, Cisco, and the Global Sustainability Foundation, as well as a group of Founding Nations and Regions, including Barcelona, Benin, Croatia, Malaysia, New York State, Rwanda, and the United States.

“We’re proud to have the support of esteemed dignitaries and business leaders on board with the Global STEM Alliance,” says Celina Morgan-Standard, Senior Vice President, Global Business Development, Global STEM Alliance. “With a ready and willing base of partners dedicated to building STEM skills and supporting global economic development, I have no doubt we can achieve our goals and solve the STEM paradox.”

Learn more about educational programming at the Academy.

A Geneticist’s Perspective on Where Life Begins

Geneticist and developmental biologist Antonio Giraldez investigates where human life begins.

Published December 1, 2014

By Daniel Krieger

Antonio Giraldez, a geneticist and developmental biologist specializing in embryos, sees the trajectory of his career in a rather unusual light. For Giraldez, there’s a clear parallel between his own development as a scientist and the fundamental transition an embryo undergoes that marks the beginning of life.

When an embryo initially forms, instructions from the mother’s body guide the first few hours of development. Then, the embryo’s own genome activates, and development continues according to its instructions. “Think of it as breaking the link with your mom when you become a teenager,” Giraldez says. “She has taught you a lot of things, but you need to explore the world on your own. The embryo does that, too.”

His long-term investigations into how this biological process works have led to important discoveries, all of which stem from his endless fascination with the mechanisms that make life happen. “How a fertilized egg makes a new organism shows that the book of life is written with the same language,” he says. “The same instructions are used over and over to make very different species and different parts of the animals, and when these signals are activated in the wrong place or time, that can cause disease, which is why we need to understand how animals develop from an egg.”

A Scientist is Born

An only child growing up in Jerez, a city in southwestern Spain, Giraldez’s interest in science was first sparked by fire. When he was eight, he moved beyond merely setting things aflame after his parents gave him a children’s chemistry set called The Little Chemist. “It was much more dangerous than the ones they sell nowadays,” he says. “You could do real experiments.” So he set about mixing all kinds of chemicals that would bubble, smoke and even explode—reactions that pleased him to no end.

Despite his inquisitive nature, Giraldez was a lackluster student until his 8^th grade science teacher inspired him by having students conduct physics experiments and learn about natural science through experimentation. From that point on, he took school much more seriously and grew to love everything related to science—especially chemistry.

In high school, a teacher gave him the keys to the lab where he would spend hours playing scientist. “It was great fun,” Giraldez says. Meanwhile, at home, he continued his own experiments with chemicals his father brought home from the sherry winery where he worked. He got his first practical lessons in biology—and stank up the house—growing things in petri dishes, from fungus to bacteria, using a closable desk as an incubator.

Reading and experimenting fueled Giraldez’s passion for science, which just kept growing. When it came time for college, though uncertain about his future, his course of study was clear. While majoring in chemistry at the University of Cádiz, he conducted many experiments—like one he devised to figure out how to prevent white wine from spoiling.

The Chemistry of Life

But his interest soon shifted to “the chemistry of life,” and that led Giraldez to the University Autónoma of Madrid, where he got his first exposure to developmental biology. It was there that Dr. Ginéz Morata, an esteemed developmental biologist specializing in fly genetics, took Giraldez under his wing and steered him on a new path of inquiry that continues to this day. “I learned that by modifying genes, we can modify how an organism is made,” he says. “It’s like playing god. My fascination with that hasn’t diminished since.”

Giraldez parted ways with his undergraduate mentor when he pursued a PhD at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, where he dove deeper into research of fly genetics under the guidance of his new mentor, geneticist Stephen Cohen. Living and breathing science like never before, he thrived in this highly collaborative and multidisciplinary environment, interacting with top-notch scientists from around the world. “It was a dream come true,” he says.

His work, studying the genes that regulate the wing-signaling pathways of flies, was a major step in his evolution as a scientist. “Every day I would go to the microscope and find new genes that were changing the shape of how a fly is made,” he says. Once, while examining mutant flies without wings, he identified a new gene needed for reading instructions to make a wing. “I had a wonderful time doing this genetic screening and discovered something new every day.”

A Budding Young Scientist

A 3D rendered illustration of a human embryo in week 4. Image courtesy of Sebastian Kaulitzki via stock.adobe.com.

Giraldez came to the United States to complete his postdoctoral work—a move he deemed necessary for any budding young scientist. He was drawn to New York University—and later, to Harvard—by his next mentor, Dr. Alexander Schier, a molecular and cellular biologist with whom he felt a special kinship. However, he had doubts about what avenue of inquiry to pursue next. He felt it was time to branch out into uncharted territory.

As it turned out, Giraldez’ lab in Heidelberg had been one of the first to identify microRNAs—tiny regulators of gene expression—in a fly embryo. It wasn’t yet known if microRNAs were widespread in vertebrates, and answering that question struck Giraldez as an exciting prospect. “I wanted to find out what they were doing in the making of a vertebrate,” he says, having suspected that microRNAs played an important role.

Using zebrafish, he discovered that microRNAs facilitate the process by which a fertilized egg becomes a multicellular embryo by helping it cast off instructions from the mother as it develops. “By learning how the embryo gets rid of these previous instructions, we also learned a fundamental function of how these microRNAs regulate other genes and their mechanisms,” he says. Giraldez was starting to make his mark.

When he arrived at Yale in 2006, where he is currently an associate professor in the Department of Genetics at the School of Medicine, Giraldez was eager to continue his investigation of microRNAs and their role in regulating embryo development. In 2009, he and his team reported that they had mapped how two particular microRNAs affect hundreds of muscle genes in a zebrafish embryo.

“New Molecular Scissors”

The following year, he made news again, publishing the discovery of “new molecular scissors” that Giraldez says represent a novel method by which cells make microRNAs that are essential to the creation of red blood cells. His initial hunch years earlier—that microRNAs play a key role in the formation of both animals and disease—had been right.

Today, Giraldez oversees a lab of 20 researchers, and he has moved beyond the study of microRNAs, which are just one piece of the puzzle in understanding how the embryo regulates genes. He is now studying the trigger that jumpstarts an embryo’s life.

“We want to understand how the first genes get activated because that sets off a domino effect in the making of an embryo,” he says. “This activation is what initiates the deletion of the maternal instructions, but we now realize that the microRNA is not the only mechanism that accomplishes this task. We have uncovered novel mechanisms used by the embryo to clean the slate.”

“These processes are crucial,” he says, “because later steps, like the making of the heart, eyes, or skin, depend on the very first step in that cascade being activated correctly.” Giraldez and his team found, for instance, that the proteins that trigger initial development in embryos are the same ones that can reprogram mature, differentiated cells into pluripotent stem cells.

The implications of fully understanding how genes are activated to make a new embryo can be far-reaching, especially in the treatment of disease. “Learning how embryos clean the slate may teach us, for example, how a cell is able to erase its previous programming to become a tumor cell, and to then proliferate and invade other tissues,” he says.

Numerous Accolades

While at Yale, Giraldez has been the recipient of numerous honors. He was a faculty finalist in the inaugural year of the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in 2007, and he received the John Kendrew Young Investigator Award from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory the same year.

He also received the Lois E. and Franklin H. Top, Jr., Yale Scholar Award and was named a Pew Scholar in biomedical sciences. This year, he was awarded the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science in recognition of his groundbreaking research that uncovered the role of microRNAs in the regulation of gene expression in embryos.

Throughout his path as a scientist—from the early spark that set off his own growth and development through the many stages that followed—Giraldez has followed his passion. He credits a blend of chance opportunities and his lucky encounters with life-changing mentors at key transitional moments for shaping his work and directing his career.

Now a mentor himself, he takes great pleasure in continuing the cycle, guiding his students as they devise their own experiments and make new discoveries. One of his longtime mentees, Carter Takacs, a senior investigator in his lab, has observed his commitment to this process. “He really values being able to help younger scientists grow and mature,” he says.

About the Author

Daniel Krieger is a writer, photographer and reporter with over a decade of journalistic experience.

Imparting the Value of Wonder on Aspiring Scientists

Teaching an afterschool forensics course was about more than imparting knowledge of DNA; we aimed to teach students the value of asking questions and seeking answers.

Published August 1, 2014

By Giovanna Collu and Jonathan Isaac Schneiderman

Image courtesy of Verin via stock.adobe.com.

Training for our afterschool “forensic science” course flew by: fingerprints, shoeprints, crime scene sketches, hair and fabric samples, and an encouraging “You’ll do great!” Not specializing in forensics, we scribbled down notes and were certainly a little nervous as the slow trickle of students came into the classroom that first day. “Is this ‘MAD SCIENCE’ class?” someone popped their head in and asked. We both looked at each other puzzled, until one of the teachers in the room replied, “Yes, yes it is. Now sit down already.”

Unlike past longer-term mentoring opportunities that we’d had, our afterschool class only ran for one semester. Given that we had a different mix of kids attending each week, it was clear that the brief and sporadic nature of our interaction with each student would require a different mentoring game plan. We needed to quickly establish a relationship of mutual respect, generate and maintain enthusiasm, and most importantly, seed a lasting change in the kids’ relationship with science. Piece of cake, right?

“So, does anyone know what ‘forensic’ means?” we asked a silent classroom. “It’s like on TV, when there’s a crime that needs to be solved,” we explained. But the truth was that we weren’t there to teach them forensics at all. We were there to show them that scientists don’t have to be crazy-haired, old white men—because we aren’t. We were there to be relatable adults who happened to be scientists and were taking the time to teach them something interesting.

A Fun Break from the Classroom Routine

With 90 minutes per session, we knew that time would always be limited. Still, the mission was clear: provide a fun break from the classroom routine. Once the kids were engaged with hands-on activities, we could get them excited about solving problems using an evidence-based approach. Sure, we were “investigating crimes,” but asking questions and critically assessing answers are also important for understanding science as well as the world at large.

We raised the stakes a few sessions into the semester when we planned a fieldtrip to the Harlem DNA Lab, a short train ride away. Tucked away in an area far-removed from our research facilities, the center is a division of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an organization home to numerous Nobel laureates. The trip gave us an exciting opportunity to share a small part of our day-to-day lives with the students.

So there we were, 12 kids, two teachers and the two of us, on the New York City subway during rush hour, on our way to see how DNA is analyzed in a lab. Our mantra-like counting of heads to ensure no child was left behind was all but drowned out by a stream of questions from the group: “Are we going to a real crime lab?” “Will we be wearing white coats?” “Are there going to be dead bodies there?”

After a short refresher about DNA, our instructor, Melissa Lee, quickly split us into groups, each equipped with a gel-box and colored tubes. Once all the kids tried their luck loading samples, the gang was teeming with excitement and huddled in the dark around an illuminated gel. “Wow! Does DNA really glow green?” one of them asked. “Well, not exactly…we use a fluorescent dye to see it,” Melissa replied with a smile.

Exciting for Students and Teachers

On our way back, the chatter had a new topic, and now the teachers were in on the conversation, too. Apparently, seeing DNA was pretty cool and warranted further discussion, and that was the whole point. We wanted to use the little time we had to get everyone excited; not just the kids, but the teachers as well. After all, the teachers’ continuous reinforcement would ultimately ensure none of these children would be left behind.

Time will tell whether we succeeded in making a lasting change. However, we knew that we’d achieved one of our goals. When asked how a “real scientist” would dress, one student quickly replied, “She can wear whatever she wants.” Although we weren’t there to convince them all to become lab scientists, conveying that they were fully capable of doing so was certainly a good use of our time.

So, what worked well with our group? Like most things in life, it all came down to striking a balance. We had to enter the classroom with a clear teaching objective, but at the same time be flexible enough to let the kids follow up with tangential questions so that they felt engaged. We also learned to include a variety of activities and not be too didactic. Overall, though, the key to this mentoring experience was to be ourselves, have fun solving crimes, and let our love of science speak for itself.

Also read: Good Mentors are Key to Student Interest in STEM

About the Authors

Giovanna Collu, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Mlodzik Lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Jonathan Isaac Schneiderman, PhD, is associate director of science at McCANN RCW.

Challenging Young Innovators to Think Big and Bold

Middle school students tackle “Nature’s Fury” through teamwork, persistence, and robots at an Academy event.

Published August 1, 2014

By Caitlin Johnson

Image courtesy of LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS via stock.adobe.com.

For a moment, 12-year-old Gabriella Ryan was distracted by the sweeping view of the Hudson River from The New York Academy of Science’s (the Academy’s) fortieth-floor conference space at 7 World Trade Center.

“This is the first time my team has competed in the city this year and it’s really cool to be in this atmosphere,” Ryan said, admiring the spring sun reflecting off the buildings below. “It’s like, so real because we’re here. I’m really excited to see all the different teams. And of course, all the robots.”

Ryan, a seventh grader at the St. Clare School on Staten Island came with her team, the Transformers 2, and 10 other middle school teams for the Academy’s fourth annual Family Engineering Challenge Day this spring.

In all, more than 100 students from schools across New York City took part in the daylong celebration of science and engineering. Students worked together to problem-solve, learn, and have some serious fun with science.

Teams came prepared to compete in three activities: a LEGO® Robotics Gameboard Challenge, a research project—both of which are part of a global series of events sponsored by LEGO and the nonprofit science mentoring program, FIRST®—and a networking challenge where students collected stickers for successfully interacting with scientists and engineers.

The National Geographic Explorers’ Engineering Challenge

This year, a fourth challenge was announced the day of the event: the National Geographic Explorers’ Engineering Challenge, which asks students to tackle a problem that a National Geographic photographer might encounter in the field: how to lift a camera 10 feet in the air for an aerial shot while the photographer’s feet remain firmly on solid ground.

Each of the challenges picks up on the theme of this year’s event, “Nature’s Fury.” It’s a theme that hit close to home, especially for those who live in areas of the Northeastern U.S. hit hard by Superstorm Sandy just over a year ago.

In addition to the students, their families, and coaches, more than 30 adult volunteers—most of them graduate students or professionals in STEM fields—volunteered to spend their Saturday serving as mentors or judges for the research projects.

For Bridget Huang, a biochemistry PhD student at Columbia University and volunteer mentor for the day, it’s all about demystifying science and helping kids see that it’s not boring, scary, or foreign.

“It’s not necessarily about making everyone here become a scientist,” Huang said. “My goal is that I don’t want any of them to be afraid of science. I want them to have interest, which will help them in any case. Even if they work in business, they should to be able to talk to scientists.”

Tinkering & Teamwork

The centerpiece of the day was the tabletop LEGO® Robotics scrimmage, where teams design and program a LEGO robot to navigate an 8-foot by 4-foot game board in two-and-a-half minutes. The layout of the board simulated the aftermath of a natural disaster. Teams earned points for each task their robot completed—for example, clearing debris, avoiding obstacles, and picking up and moving pieces from one spot on the board to another.

Many of the students said they were especially excited about learning computer programming to “teach” their robots what to do, and about incorporating high-tech components into their LEGO creations. “The coolest thing was the ultrasonic sensor we put on our robot. We could program the distance from barriers and surfaces and it could avoid them,” said Ariel Sanchez, 9, with PS 94K’s Master Blaster team.

His teammate Eric Velasquez, also 9, said that they first learned about the sensor by watching others use it and “we decided to learn how to use it for the missions. The sensor makes me feel like, ‘How can we learn and use new things?’”

That spirit of collaborative learning—borrowing and building on what works—is a big part of what this annual event is designed to foster.

Because this was a scrimmage, not an official FIRST LEGO League (FLL) competition, it was open to teams who didn’t qualify for the FLL finals taking place later in the spring at the Javitz Center in New York. And while the scrimmage mimicked the competition format—with four tables of teams competing at the same time—each robot was going for its personal best rather than trying to beat the others.

Collaboration and Problem Solving

Each team got three runs on the scrimmage tables; in between, they could take their boards back to their “base camps” and tweak things. “As with all good engineering, there’s iteration that happens and the teams learn a lot about what happens with the robots as they watch them perform,” said Stephanie Wortel, Academy Education Program Manager. “They work together to problem-solve and make their robots even better.”

That’s what members of team Flash from Genesis Middle School at Xavarian High School in Brooklyn did after their first run. Huddled over their gameboard, Ryan Clark, 11, and teammates CJ Ruiz, Michael Cuddy, and Chris McElhinney, all 12, were replacing their robot’s treads and swapping out some of the parts.

“This wasn’t planned, it was more like a last-minute thing,” Cuddy admitted. “The referees told us we could use more accuracy and speed.”

Teammate Alexander Ayoub, 13, stopped tinkering long enough to reflect: “The thing about this, it’s just a great experience because many other people don’t do this kind of stuff and it really makes us a lot smarter. But it takes a lot of things, like building and programming, and you need strategies. That helps you with practically everything in life, not just if you want to become an engineer or a programmer.”

Nearby, David Cadunzi, 13, with St. Clare Transformers, said that’s what he likes most about this annual Academy event: “It’s about having fun, and the trial and error that helps you succeed. When my team and I don’t get a program we want to get, we don’t back down. We keep trying it even though we mess up a lot.”

“Gameifying” Science and Mathematics

John Steib, 12, with Team LEGO Force agreed: “That’s a good thing you have to learn in life, too. You can’t just fix everything by doing it one way or with the push of a button.”

“It’s easier working together with a team because if you’re doing one thing and it’s hard for you, your friends are there and you can learn from them,” Shameekah Gray, 13, said.

Some pretty grownup lessons were being learned through “gameifying” science and mathematics.

The Robotics Challenge may have been the main event, but students were equally excited about the research project. In September 2013, teams were given an assignment: identify a real community and a nature-related problem it faces, and come up with an innovative solution that will prevent damage or help the community recover from the natural disaster.

And innovate they did.

Projects ranged from a waterproof coating to prevent generators from exploding (developed by students in Bay Ridge and Breezy Point, Brooklyn, which was plagued by fires after Sandy) to an inflatable “SnapAlert” life vest that includes supplies and a homing device to alert rescuers, to a full-body suit to keep wearers safe and warm in dirty flood waters. A more fanciful project, Hurricane Fighters, centered on large flying robots that emit countervailing winds to disrupt hurricanes.

At the Academy, each team got 20 minutes to pitch their ideas and field questions from a panel of judges, all of them STEM professionals from Tata Consultancy Services, Moody’s, Goldman Sachs, and InfoSys.

“It felt so real because we were in a conference room and the judges were actual engineers and people in the field,” said Thomas Drennan, a member of St. Clare’s Transformers.

Special Recognition

Judges gave special recognition to several stand-out projects, including those designed by the two St. Clare Transformers teams from Staten Island.

“Sandy was definitely a big motivator for us because we lived it,” said Mary Lee, coach of both Transformers teams. “We were out of school for a week with no electricity, and we had kids whose families lost homes.”

“We considered a lot of ideas and decided on the ones we thought would be the most effective and would help our community the most,” St. Clare student Daniella Gomes said.

Transformers 1 designed “Pack N’ Track,” a waterproof box that keeps valuable papers safe and has a transponder so it can be tracked at a distance of 35 feet (in version two, the team plans to boost the distance).

Transformers 2 built “The Window Seal,” a window that automatically seals itself during a flood. They used a typical basement window and lined it with a bicycle tire tube that inflates when water activates a pressure sensor, indicating that flood waters are nearing the window.

Not all teams designed research projects to solve hurricane and flood-related problems. Team LEGOForce from MS 442 in Brooklyn chose Boston as their community, and blizzard-related power outages as their problem to solve.

“During a blizzard, it’s really important [to keep power on] because you can get hypothermia and that can be deadly,” said Ivan Sanchez, 13.

After talking to an Office of Emergency Management employee and one of the team member’s landlords, an electrician, they came up with the idea for a cover for electric power lines made from a flexible series of connected casings “like the shell of a millipede.”

A Little Scary, A Lot Cool

That way, “it’s a little bouncy so when a tree or a branch lands on it, it will bounce off a little. It reinforces the wire,” Yosmai Bielma, 13, said.

“The quality of the presentations and the ideas and the access the kids have to information continues to amaze me,” said Paul Walker, a physicist by training who leads technology for Goldman Sachs and is also an Academy Board Member. He volunteered to judge the presentations, as he has done each year of the event.

Walker noted that this year, the networking component was integrated throughout the event. “In so many science programs, formal communication and science are emphasized but informal communication or networking—which is really the difference between success and failure in many of these fields—is not part of the program.”

Bronx Taskforce coach Oscar Lemus said the Academy scrimmage “gives kids a career awareness that other tournaments can’t offer. They have unlimited questions, and this is a place where they can ask real scientists.”

For Enxon Zheng, from PS 94 in Brooklyn, the networking was both “scary and cool. Today, I learned how to be braver and have courage to talk with others and learn and know about them. I’m usually kind of shy.”

Meeting Real Scientists

“That’s my favorite part,” said Darius Gravely with team LEGOForce. “I get to meet people who are actually, like, from science and ask how they work with science.”

This year, that included a visit from real-life astronauts, including Charlie Camarda and Rick Linnehan. Throughout the event, they visited with teams and fielded questions from excited students.

A Queens native and graduate of Brooklyn Polytech, Camarda praised the Academy for teaching teamwork, communication, and the importance of failing and trying again.

“The older these kids get, the more they’re going to be told what works and what doesn’t work. We have to make sure that they stay critical thinkers and lifelong learners and [don’t] just take at face value what someone says but figure it out for themselves and stay creative,” he said.

Check out the Innovation Challenges sponsored by The New York Academy of Sciences!

About the Author

Caitlin Johnson is the co-founder and managing editor of www.sparkaction.org, a website that covers a range of child and youth issues.

Supporting the NeXXt Generation of STEM

Professional role models help undergraduate women turn STEM aspirations into realities.

Published August 1, 2013

By Diana Friedman

Image courtesy of A-DIGIT via istockphoto.com.

“I grew up in a rural area [of the U.S.] with the ‘Fisher Price people’ jobs around me—most people built things or worked on a farm and if you went to college you could be a teacher, nurse, dentist, or doctor,” says Kristy Lamb, PhD, a Fellow in the NeXXt Scholars Program, through which she provides mentoring.

The program is a joint effort between The New York Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Department of State, and a consortium of U.S. women’s colleges that pairs professional women working in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields with undergraduate women from the United States and countries with predominantly Muslim populations who are majoring in STEM subjects.

“It wasn’t until I took AP biology in the 11th grade that someone told me that science was complicated and detailed and [that] we didn’t have it all figured out yet,” says Lamb, a postdoctoral associate in radiation oncology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. That uncertainty appealed to Lamb who enrolled in a science summer program targeting students from rural areas. “In three weeks—from just that taste of microbiology—I was hooked on research.”

Now, thanks in part to the summer program that got her started on the path to a research career, Lamb is reaching out to the next generation of researchers through mentoring.

The NeXXt Scholars Program: How It Works

The New York Academy of Sciences, in partnership with the U.S. Department of State and a consortium of women’s colleges, developed the NeXXt Scholars Program to support young women from countries with predominantly Muslim populations (International NeXXt Scholars) and college-appointed young American women (American NeXXt Scholars) as they pursue undergraduate degrees in STEM fields at U.S. women’s colleges.

The Program was inspired by a young woman from Egypt named Weam, who was accepted into a Master’s degree program in biological sciences at a U.S. women’s college. Weam’s father was initially resistant to the idea of allowing his daughter to live alone in a foreign country. But, two factors gave him the courage to break strong cultural norms and allow Weam to pursue the degree: his high regard for science and the higher education system in the U.S. and the environment offered by a women’s college.

These two aspects—science education and a women’s college—provided the tipping point for Weam to seize an opportunity that changed her future. Weam’s mother proudly attended her graduation and, since then, her family has even allowed Weam to return to the U.S. for the pursuit of a doctorate degree at a co-educational institution.

Inspired by Weam’s experience, former U.S. State Department staffer Sandra Laney conceptualized the NeXXt Scholars Program to provide opportunities and support for women, 50% of the world’s potential workforce, who she feels are critical to future innovations in STEM fields. The Program was officially launched by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in December 2011 and in fall 2012 the inaugural cohort of NeXXt Scholars began the Program.

Matched with STEM Professionals

All NeXXt Scholars are matched with women working in STEM professions (Fellows) who mentor the Scholars as they navigate their undergraduate careers, providing support regarding career paths and professional development. The Scholars have one-on-one relationships with their mentors, but are also linked to a wider network of STEM professionals through online resources and 5-year Academy memberships.

The first cohort of International NeXXt Scholars hail from Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey. They were nominated through the State Department’s EducationUSA centers, which help promote cross-cultural understanding via academic exchange and study programs for international students. American NeXXt Scholars, accomplished young women who are selected by their colleges to partner with the International NeXXt Scholars, hail from across the United States.

NeXXt Scholars are currently attending Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Columbia College (SC), Douglass Residential College at Rutgers University, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Wellesley College, and Wilson College. Due to the success of the Program in its first year, a new class of Scholars and Fellows will be joining the program in the fall of 2013.

A Matter of Perspective

Fellows in the NeXXt Scholars Program interact with their assigned mentees on a regular basis. “We talk on the phone once a week and text at least every other day,” says student Sami Cahill, who is effusive about her mentor’s important role during her first year at Columbia College in South Carolina. “She gives me encouragement, but she also gives me the real-life perspective,” she says. “She’s really personally invested in me.”

Rabeb Layouni, a student at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, also cites a strong personal connection with her mentor. “We talk every week for almost 2 hours, but it’s not just me asking for help—she tells me what’s going on her life too. She puts things in perspective in a way that my friends can’t.” Layouni, who is from Tunisia, got into medical school—a very typical career path for smart Tunisian students—in her home country, but she felt that being a medical doctor wasn’t necessarily her calling. “My mentor really makes me feel there are more possibilities out there,” says Layouni, who hopes to identify a career path that incorporates her love of problem-solving.

Mentors use a variety of techniques to show their STEM students what’s possible. “Together we explore STEM career paths and gather information so she can make choices,” says Dana Miloaga, PhD, R/D project engineer at PPG Industries, Inc. in Pennsylvania, of her mentee. Miloaga knows first-hand what a lack of choice feels like, having grown up in Romania where she didn’t have access to the foreign language texts that she hoped to study. “I help my mentee identify persons to interview so that she can learn directly about their work and experience,” she adds.

Connections Across Cultures

Fellow Majd Matta, a PhD candidate in astronomy at Boston University, grew up in the middle of civil war in Beirut and relished thinking about science as a child—a welcome mental escape from the hard realities of many days spent in bomb shelters. She has learned through the mentoring process “that some social and cultural challenges are timeless.”

Matta’s mentee, Layouni, has had to face the same issues upon coming to the U.S. as Matta did many years ago. Despite their different backgrounds, challenges such as coping with being far away from home and switching to a different verbal mode are common ground. “I must have lucked out to get such an admirable mentee,” says Matta, who has been impressed by the grace with which Layouni has handled such obstacles.

Fellow Connie Jeffery signed up for the NeXXt Scholars Program thinking that she might be able to help bridge some of the cultural gaps an international NeXXt Scholar might face, having worked closely with many women from countries with predominantly Muslim populations throughout the course of her academic life as an associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

But she has found the experience to be an excellent learning opportunity for her, too: “I’ve seen a lot in the news about [my mentee’s] country [the Palestinian Territories], but it has been interesting to learn more about what it is like to live there,” says Jeffery, who notes that she finds talks with her mentee an enjoyable way to fulfill her innate sense of volunteerism while creating lasting connections.

Unexpected Payback

Lamb, like her fellow NeXXt Scholar mentors, has found that paying it forward has payoffs of its own: “There’s something to sitting down and offering mentorship to someone younger…that helps you consolidate your knowledge about your career and reflect on the journey you have taken,” she says.

“Postdocs are often perceived to be in an odd limbo—part professional, part trainee—but I think participating in this program has helped me to better realize my professional self and to step away from thinking of myself as a trainee,” says Lamb. Working with young people also injects a sense of excitement and enthusiasm into her professional work, Lamb says. “It’s infectious.”

Jeffery and Matta both noted that they find the expanded NeXXt Scholar network—from the other mentors and mentees to the program organizers at the Academy—to be invigorating. “I have gained both a friend and great peer network,” says Matta.

A New Challenge A Mentor’s Worth

In April of this year, the NeXXt Scholars and their Fellows were invited to a special event at the United States Mission to the United Nations (USUN) in New York. At the event, the Scholars were able to practice their networking skills—honed through group activities at Barnard College and The Rockefeller University earlier in the day—with UN ambassadors and representatives from UN Women, the UN Secretariat, UNESCO, and other stakeholders interested in women and science.

Meghan Groome, PhD, executive director of Education and Public Programs at the Academy, gave a short talk, noting the overwhelming success of the inaugural cohort of the NeXXt Scholars Program, which is made possible by the generosity of the mentors who volunteer their time as well as the outstanding undergraduate Scholars.

She also issued a challenge to the students, tasking them with finding ways to mentor others, whether elementary or high school students, their peers, or next year’s incoming college first-years. Groome cited the importance of the Scholars in developing a continuous feedback loop in which mentees become mentors. “No matter what your age or experience, there’s always someone you can mentor.”

Support is Key to Inspire Tomorrow’s Visionaries

A man in a suit and tie poses for the camera.

Ashok Vemuri and the Infosys USA Foundation place a premium on promoting STEM. Thus far these efforts have been immensely successful and have surpassed their goals. But how do we maintain this level of success?

Published December 1, 2012

By Noah Rosenberg

Ashok Vemuri’s professional achievements are no small feat. But he insists that neither were his mentors’ roles in helping him arrive at where he is today: the Head of Americas and Global Head of Financial Services & Insurance at Infosys, where he also serves as a member of the board.

“In my career, I have benefited from being mentored by some key individuals,” says Vemuri, who in 2008 was selected by Business Today as one of India’s 25 Hottest Young Executives, and the following year was elected to the Forum of Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum. “And I also make it a priority to offer advice and support to our employees under the aegis of the Infosys Leadership Institute.”

It turns out that Vemuri’s support and advice, and that of Infosys, extends well beyond the company’s hallowed halls. In 2010, a passionate conversation between Infosys Co-Founder and Executive Co-Chairman S. (Kris) Gopalakrishnan and leadership at The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy) about the value of mentors, led to the Infosys USA Foundation’s first U.S. grant, which went to the Academy to help seed its Afterschool STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) Mentoring Program.

Infosys’ involvement, Vemuri explains, enabled the company and its foundation to support “exploration and hands-on learning opportunities” for underprivileged students under the guidance of highly-skilled mentors—graduate students and post-docs who have successfully applied and trained to become Academy Education Fellows. Infosys employees find ways to get directly involved too; those who hold engineering degrees or Masters in science and math volunteer their time to engage students with cutting-edge subjects like robotics or space science, as well as the perennially vital fields of biology or earth science.

An Enormous Success

The first year of the Afterschool Mentoring Program was an enormous success, placing more than 120 mentors in 84 after-school and summer programs across all five boroughs of New York City. More than 2,100 elementary and middle school children benefited as a result and, Vemuri notes, the program continues to satisfy the Infosys USA Foundation’s mission of “fulfilling the social responsibility of the company by creating opportunities and working toward a more equitable society.”

Clearly, the Afterschool Mentoring Program, which initially partnered with the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development, is a win-win. The program is central to the Academy’s K-12 Education Initiative and its goal of encouraging higher achievement both in and out of the classroom with respect to STEM.

Fortunately, the Infosys USA Foundation was just getting started. The Foundation, which is financed by up to one percent of Infosys’ annual profits, recently expanded its challenge grant to the Academy to include a New Jersey partnership with the national non-profit organization Citizen Schools, effectively extending the Afterschool Program’s influence to low-income students in Newark via $50,000 in additional funding, bringing the cumulative total to $350,000.

Surpassing Goals

The additional funding support from the Infosys USA Foundation will allow the Academy to recruit, train, and support 30 new mentors in the 2011-2012 school year. The Afterschool Program will provide 180 hours of hands-on after-school activities for 450 fourth-through eighth-graders in New Jersey, as well as extend Academy membership to at least 300 teachers in the state.

“In today’s times when fewer students are graduating from high school than ever before, as responsible adult citizens of society, it is important for us to retain students in school beyond regular hours,” Vemuri says of Infosys’ decision to scale its involvement with the Academy’s Afterschool STEM Mentoring Program. He notes that participating students are immersed in subject areas that are “core to our business at Infosys.”

Naturally, Vemuri is pleased to have had a role in the Afterschool Program’s success, and he hopes the program continues to have an influence, churning out the next generation of science, technology, engineering, and math visionaries. “We are proud of our association with the Academy and the STEM Mentoring Program,” Vemuri says. “For me personally, it has been very satisfying to see the program surpass its goals.”

Learn more about the Academy’s educational programming.

About the Author

Noah Rosenberg is a journalist in New York City.

The Intersection of Sports and STEM

Piquing kids’ interest in science, technology, engineering, and math may be as easy as picking up a ball.

Published August 1, 2012

By Adedeji B. Badiru

Image courtesy of nateejindakum via stock.adobe.com.

Much has been said about the need to find new strategies to spark the interest of kids in STEM education. This is essential for preserving the nation’s technological superiority and ensuring economic advancement. The key is to find the right “hook and bait” to get youngsters interested in technical and scientific fields.

Recent studies have concluded that physical activities can enhance the learning potential of kids. Why not, then, channel that connection toward enhancing STEM education through a structured sports and STEM curriculum?

Ball-based sports (soccer, basketball, tennis, softball, racquetball, etc.) are particularly well-suited for translation into engaging STEM lessons. After all, all balls are not created equal. The STEM properties of sports balls are different based on their intended purposes. Kids can study the properties of individual balls or do a comparative analysis of different types of balls.

Sparking Curiosity

On a recent visit to the Air Force Institute of Technology, Astronaut Mike Fossum, a 1981 graduate of the institute, showed a video where a colleague of his on the International Space Station played baseball all by himself. He would pitch the ball and then let himself float ahead of the ball so that he could bat, then catch the ball at the other end, eventually throwing it to himself again. This is an exciting illustration of how the lack of gravity in space can be exploited for a self-played game.

I do not know many young kids who will see such a demonstration and not ask further questions. With questions comes inquisitiveness and with inquisitiveness comes interest. Teachers can use this interest to explain, engage, and retain attention for STEM principles.

A specific example of using ball sports to teach STEM subjects is provided by the education-oriented website, www.physicsofsoccer.com. This resource presents an engaging connection between physics and soccer. Issues addressed by the website include what makes a ball bounce, how gravity affects the flight path of a soccer ball, and how friction and moisture impede a ball’s path.

These are issues that inquiring young minds would be delighted to explore in a fun, relational way. For example, the flight path of a kicked soccer ball can be modeled to provide engaging simulation experiments to teach kids new concepts about gravity, lift, and drag, without the intimidation that can often accompany these subjects.

Soccer Ball Dissection

Analogous to the way kids learn biology by dissecting a frog, the “dissection” of a soccer ball, both literally and figuratively, can reveal learning opportunities for the STEM properties embodied in the ball. The image to the right illustrates where and how STEM elements fit into the overall integrity of the soccer ball in terms of mathematical description of the shape, surface properties, and shape design of the ball.

The shape of a soccer ball is an example of a solid spherical polyhedron, also known as truncated icosahedrons, which has 12 black pentagons, 20 white hexagons, 60 vertices, and 90 edges.

This example of dissecting a soccer ball to illustrate STEM applications is not in itself the goal here, but rather provides an example of the ways that parents and teachers can leverage whatever is at hand (e.g., sports equipment or other props) to explain and spark interest in STEM subjects.

Every sports opportunity can be leveraged as a science learning opportunity. The key is to recognize and exploit the available opportunity. If we do this, STEM may spread more sustainably than we ever imagined.

About the Author

Adedeji B. Badiru is professor and head of Systems and Engineering Management at the Air Force Institute of Technology in Dayton, OH.

The Science of Start-Ups: From Idea to IPO

A revamped “From Idea to IPO” course program provides a crash course in entrepreneurship for the scientifically savvy.

Published June 1, 2012

By Christina Duffy

Image courtesy of ILEXX – istockphoto.com.

When Ching Yao Yang, a PhD candidate working in materials chemistry at New York University, received an email from his lab advisor detailing problems with lab management, he had a great idea for a new company: “I wanted to create an environment for people to use technology in the lab, not only researchers, but primary investigators and vendors.” But with no formal business training, he was not sure where to start.

Enter “From Idea to IPO,” a course offered by The New York Academy of Sciences through the Academy’s Science Alliance, which provides career education, development, and training for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Science professionals enrolled in the 12-week course gain the tools necessary to understand, grow, and sustain a start-up business—moving ideas from the lab to the business world—and bring it to life in the ever-changing marketplace of New York City.

Since Science Alliance introduced the “From Idea to IPO” course in 2004, it has been one of its most popular and longest running programs; approximately 500 young scientists in the NYC metropolitan area have taken the course thus far.

A Fresh Perspective

Earlier this year, Science Alliance Director Monica Kerr took over the direction and teaching of “From Idea to IPO,” using the opportunity to breathe new life into the program.

“My goal was to freshen up an ongoing, popular program that was running nearly unchanged since its launch in 2004 and also address some challenges I had observed,” says Kerr.

Kerr, who earned her PhD in cell and developmental biology from the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program at Harvard Medical School, realized that in a world of constantly evolving technology and business models, the course had, in recent years, lost some of its luster and that beneath its dulled surface lay the perfect marriage of science and business.

“As I was restructuring the curriculum, I aimed to not only teach the nuts and bolts of starting a new venture, but to also cultivate entrepreneurial skills, off er exposure to the start-up community in NYC, and increase awareness of various career paths supporting the commercialization of science,” says Kerr, who took a systematic approach to revamping the course curriculum through use of existing successful models.

“I accomplished this by incorporating more active learning approaches, which have been shown to be highly effective in increasing student learning and recruiting 15 guest contributors from the local entrepreneurial ecosystem,” says Kerr.

These changes were directly influenced by a similar course taught at Stanford University School of Engineering by consulting professor Tom Kosnik, who was instrumental in sharing course lecture notes and materials, says Kerr. Andrew Nelson, co-author of Technology Ventures: From Idea to Enterprise, also assisted in thinking about syllabus design and how to utilize and incorporate the textbook.

“Opportunity Recognition and Evaluation” and “Pursuit of Opportunity”

Kerr has divided the course into two modules: “Opportunity Recognition and Evaluation,” which covers innovations in technology, the creation of business models, and entrepreneurial marketing, and “Pursuit of Opportunity,” which covers the more concrete components of business, including patent protection, finance, accounting basics, and start-up and venture capital.

Students put this knowledge to use by undertaking course-long team projects where they work through the process of starting a mock company using a science-based business idea they decide upon as a team. Each team is assigned a local mentor who works in the entrepreneurship field, who they can go to for support and advice.

Guest speakers for the course include entrepreneurs as well as members of the technology transfer, legal, accounting, and finance communities. Many of these guest speakers also come back to serve as judges for the final day of the course, when students “pitch” their mock companies to a panel of experts and get personalized feedback on everything from their business idea to their presentation style.

New York City Entrepreneur-in-Residence Melinda Thomas, who serves as both a guest speaker and a judge for the course, has noticed a positive change in the course over the past year. “I was very impressed by the change in terms of it being more engaging. Monica is using the case method to teach points. Students work through a real company that has a real issue and they become more engaged in having to think it through.”

Thomas—who has been the business brains behind several successful medical and science start-ups and is now a leader in the NYC start-up community—believes that the team building component of the course is very beneficial in crafting profitable science-based business ideas.

From Mock Project to Marketplace

“Once you have an idea and start your company, you won’t have all the skills needed to create the product. You’re going to have to work in a team and learn how to ask the right questions.” While scientists are used to working together to solve problems, points out Thomas, working through problems in a business capacity can take some practice.

One illustration of exemplary teamwork that came out of the most recent “From Idea to IPO” course is Team Benchsoft. Comprised of scientists from a variety of disciplines, three members of Team Benchsoft —including Ching Yao Yang, who came up with the idea for a better lab management system—have forged ahead with their mock class project, taking it to the marketplace. With their only formal business training coming in the form of Kerr’s instruction in “From Idea to IPO,” Yang, Jasmin Hume, and Raul Catena have made the commitment to start a real company.

Since taking the course, they have written a business plan, created an advisory board, and incorporated the company. They are currently shopping the company around to angel investors. “We are moving really quickly,” says Hume. “During the course, we were learning and implementing simultaneously.” Hume, a PhD candidate who works in the lab with Yang, feels that the material they learned in the course was directly—and immediately—applicable to the process of creating a start-up company.

“Learning about the sequence of events has been really helpful. It’s important to know where to focus at each point in the process, whether it’s on building a prototype or looking for money,” says Catena.

Success Story

Yang cites the expert guest speakers and the team’s mentor as a big part of their early success. “Our mentor has the same background as us (a PhD) so he was able to give us constructive criticism on both the technical and business aspects of our idea.”

When asked about the ideal outcomes of the course, Kerr cites a variety of potential results—from students obtaining positions in technology transfer, patent law, venture capital, or at a start-up to students gaining new skills that are helpful for advancement regardless of career path. However, it’s clear that she is particularly proud of Team Benchsoft and Yang, Hume, and Catena’s transition to real-life entrepreneurs.

“It has been very inspiring to instill in students very practical information and skills that they can begin to implement immediately. Hearing them report that they feel equipped with the tools to start a new venture, and then to see one team actually in the process of pursuing this with their team project, is very validating.”

About the Author

Christina Duffy is a freelance writer in New York City.

To Build an Economic Engine: Overhaul Education

From rural one-room schoolhouse to Chancellor of the State University of New York, Nancy Zimpher has a diverse perspective on education.

Published May 1, 2011

By Marilynn Larkin

When Nancy Zimpher entered the one-room schoolhouse in the foothills of the Ozarks, she knew she was in trouble. “I was the sole teacher for four grades meshed into one classroom. The disconnect between how I had been prepared—as an English teacher—and what I was expected to do in the classroom couldn’t have been clearer,” Zimpher recalls.

“I hadn’t developed the disciplinary skills to stretch across that range of subjects. And I didn’t know as much as I needed to know about managing a classroom. I also didn’t know enough about how young people developed cognitively and emotionally and socially at different grade levels. And I didn’t know how to provide for students the kinds of extracurricular and home life assistance that were required in what we now call a ‘high-needs’ school.”

That experience, in the early 1970s, helped shape Zimpher’s career, which ultimately took her out of the classroom and into the spotlight as a passionate advocate and respected leader in transforming education for students as well as teachers. In her current role as Chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY), a post she accepted in 2009, Zimpher has continued her efforts to revitalize the educational system, focusing on New York State as a model for the nation.

Education Pipeline

“It’s not unusual for teachers to be teaching out of their depth and out of their discipline, often certified on some emergency basis to teach in some of the most challenging environments. This indicates that the supply chain is quite broken,” Zimpher says. “In terms of solutions, what started as a little ball rolling down the hill has become a huge issue that is coming together at this stage of my professional career through my work at SUNY, where we’re creating models that enable a very different approach to education.”

At the heart of Zimpher’s vision is an “education pipeline” that encompasses “everything people are learning at home and in schools, from the time they’re born through college graduation and as they pursue a career,” she explains. “We need to make a more connected pathway, supporting students not only in the classroom, but outside of school, in their families, in their neighborhoods, and in the whole social structure of our communities,” she says. This systemic approach is exemplified in two recent initiatives she spearheaded: Strive and the National Cradle to Career Network.

Strive, which Zimpher helped launch in Ohio when she was president of the University of Cincinnati, has since been adopted by a number of other cities across the United States, including Houston, Richmond, and Portland, Ore. The initiative brings together, among others, teachers, school district superintendents, college and university presidents, business leaders, and early childhood advocates—experts who usually work in their own “silos,” she says.

Working Across Sectors

By encouraging these individuals to work together across sectors, Strive aims to ensure that children are better prepared for school, supported inside and outside of school, succeed academically, enroll in some form of postsecondary education, graduate and embark on a career. Its most recent “report card” and other data how that in participating cities, Strive implementation has increased academic achievement, kindergarten preparedness, and college graduation rates.

The National Cradle to Career Network, launched in February 2011, is modeled after Strive, bringing together parents, teachers, administrators, and thought leaders from pre-kindergarten through higher education, as well as representatives from industry, community organizations, and government. For the prototype network, which is being developed in and around Albany, SUNY will collaborate with the Albany city school district, several regional SUNY campuses, and local governments and nonprofit organizations. Similar networks will soon be underway in Buffalo and in the borough of Brooklyn, in New York City.

“Clinical” Curriculum

Zimpher emphasizes that teachers “are in a practice-based Profession like doctors, nurses, and clinical psychologists, and they need a whole series of on-campus laboratory experiences, simulations, and video demonstrations to begin to understand the culture of specific schools and classrooms. Even when they’re sent out to a school to observe, they typically don’t know what to look for. Therefore, they cannot see.”

Convinced that clinical preparation should be the “centerpiece” of teacher education, Zimpher agreed to co-chair with former Colorado Commissioner of Education Dwight Jones the Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation and Partnerships for Improved Student Learning, convened by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education in November 2010.

In line with Zimpher’s approach, the expert panel called for teacher education to be “turned upside down” and refocused on clinical practice; as in the medical preparation model, “teachers, mentors, and coaches, and teacher interns and residents [will] work together as part of teams.” Stronger oversight by states and accreditation agencies is also recommended to ensure that teacher preparation programs become more accountable.

Thus far, New York, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio, Oregon, and Tennessee have agreed to implement the panel’s recommendations.

Power of SUNY…and the Academy

Shortly after she came on board at SUNY, Zimpher launched a strategic plan, called The Power of SUNY, with the goal of making the university system an “economic engine” for New York State. Not surprisingly, a “seamless education pipeline” is a key objective. The plan highlights the increasing need for workers with knowledge and skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)—the very areas in which performance drops as students move from elementary school through high school.

SUNY is the largest higher education system in the United States, with more than 467,000 students on 64 campuses. Its breadth, scope, and potential are what drew Zimpher to her current post. “Over my 40 years in higher education, I’ve seen a great deal of innovation, but it all had the look of a cottage industry—boutique innovations that are very difficult to take to scale,” she says.

“I saw coming to SUNY as a one-of-a-kind opportunity to take innovation to scale at every level—in education, in the sciences, in art, and in healthcare. My greatest desire for an accomplishment is to realize the power of this complex, diverse system by implementing innovative ideas across multiple campuses.”

That aspiration propelled Zimpher to join The New York Academy of Sciences’ Board of Governors, largely because of the Academy’s “strong commitment to education and, in particular, to the STEM disciplines,” she says. “Linking SUNY’s many scientists, faculty, and graduate students to the Academy’s scientific community has the potential to yield mutual benefits on a huge scale.”

Global Affairs and Outreach

Zimpher also was attracted to the Academy’s international projects and connections. “These dovetail with our desire to better coordinate SUNY’s global affairs and outreach,” she explains. “Many people talk very vehemently about how America’s educational system lags behind those of other countries. Some of what ails our system is being taken care of in other systems.

Nevertheless, as word got out about our cradle-to-career partnerships, people in other countries learned about them on the web, and have begun to solicit our advice. So, I’m thinking that all educational systems around the world get pieces of the comprehensive picture right. But the whole picture—the need to imbue the education process with academic, cultural, and social investments in our future—is something that everybody is challenged with. And that means we have an opportunity to be a model.”

Zimpher’s passion for teaching and revamping the educational system has deep roots. Although her experience in the one-room schoolhouse was a precipitating factor, the foundation was laid much earlier. Her father was a principal in a Herndon, West Virginia, elementary school when he met her mother, who came from Kentucky to teach “commercial” classes in the local high school. “Commercial classes were taken mainly by women who were not college-bound,” Zimpher notes. “Ironically, though, these classes included the one subject that has the most value for us in the 21st century—keyboarding [typing].

“Another irony is that my mother placed students in cooperative internships in local businesses, and years later I learned that the city of Cincinnati was the founder of cooperative education, close to a hundred years ago,” Zimpher says. “And here I am now, working diligently to bring paid internships and cooperative education to scale in New York.”

About the Author

Marilynn Larkin is an independent health, medical, science editor and writer in New York City.

Guidance for Novice Educators and How to Thrive

A classroom with math equations on the chalkboard.

From surviving the “awkward phase” to methods for effectively engaging students, these education professionals offer advice for rising teachers.

Published February 25, 2011

By Adrienne J. Burke

Image courtesy of Drazen via stock.adobe.com.

On February 24, 2011, The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy) hosted young scientists and mathematicians for a panel discussion titled Thinking about Teaching: Myths and Realities of Becoming an Educator. The panel included:

Hilleary Osheroff, Program Manager for the Science Research Mentoring Program at the American Museum of Natural History
Ellen Cohn, biology teacher at Bronx Science
Heather Cook, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Wagner College
Nicole Gillespie, Associate Director of Teaching Fellowships at the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation
Gabriel Rosenberg, master teacher in the Math for America Program at Bard College Early High School.

The purpose of the panel was two-fold: to demonstrate a variety of teaching-focused jobs and to share the insight of people who have transitioned into these careers from a research background. Panelists gave their impressions of what it is like to hold these positions after doing research. The panel included a faculty member at a small, teaching-focused, liberal arts college, two high school teachers, an educator who both teaches and coordinates research for students at a museum, and the director of a program that recruits and supports math and science teachers.

Regardless of the speakers’ job titles, one idea was universally confirmed in their comments: teaching is a dynamic and difficult profession that does not mirror the teaching experience of most PhDs, namely as a teaching assistant. The panelists were candid about their initial naïvetè about the difference between being a content expert and being able to teach a subject to students. All of them identified a steep learning curve that leveled off after two to three years.

Surviving the “Awkward Phase”

In order to survive this initial “awkward phase,” new teachers need, as the panelists noted based on their own experience, key support resources that focus on helping teachers find a professional learning community that includes other teachers in the same general content area as well as master teachers who can help solve problems, offer teaching resources, and simply provide moral support on a bad day. For the panelists, balancing those bad days were the positive attributes of teaching, including building relationships with the students, watching them succeed, the designing creative lesson plans, and being a professional learner.

During the Q & A audience members were curious about the balance between research and teaching in the panelists’ education positions, but most of the panel members responded that they have not been engaged in research at a high level since they moved from academia to teaching. Some panelists, however, did articulate the efforts they have made to incorporate research into their current work.

Cook spoke about finding the right project for a given set of resources, working with undergrads, and her current scientific interests. Rosenberg discussed choosing to do research during the summer and taking on additional paid teaching responsibilities. Cohn, who coordinates two classes of students doing research, admitted that she missed doing research herself but that she was happy to live vicariously through her students.

Tips for Teachers

Find out first if you like working with kids by tutoring or teaching in an after school program. If you don’t like working with kids then teaching probably isn’t the right choice.
During an interview for a faculty position, ask specific questions about the teaching load, the expectations for academic advising, and the balance between research and teaching required to get tenure. There is a huge variation in these expectations across different small liberal arts colleges.
Don’t try to navigate the state certification system alone. Make contact with programs that recruit and train professionals like you.
Develop a method to learn from your mistakes, and don’t take yourself too seriously. Learn to fail gracefully, and trust that you can recover from a bad day teaching.
Learn how to capture people’s attention through hands-on demonstrations or interactive work. If possible, avoid lecturing.
Choose a school where the administration is supportive of your teaching style. Be prepared to deal with some students and parents who push for better grades than the students have earned.
Kids love fire, slime, gross stuff, and taking things apart. Learn to embrace the mess that science makes.
Smile and present yourself as a real person—this will help break down student misconceptions of what scientists are. Be very careful, however, about what you share, and maintain a cautious, professional relationship with students and parents.
Ask yourself what evidence you have that your students are learning. Design your assignments to gather that evidence and to learn about how students learn and what their misconceptions are about the subject.
No matter where you end up, develop a strong professional network. It will make a huge difference in your first few years of teaching.

Learn more about the Academy’s educational programming.

Older posts

Newer posts