Women and people of color are underrepresented in STEM, Pennsylvania universities share how they are making a difference

• Aniya Faulcon
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Aniya Faulcon is The Spark Host/Producer for WITF. She has a passion for shining a light on unique people, experiences, and perspectives within the community.
  
  Previously she worked as the People and Social Trends Reporter/Video Anchor for LancasterOnline | LNPNews. During her time there, she created video packages, provided Facebook Live coverage at community events, and wrote data-driven stories with census data and feature stories on local leaders, non-profit organizations, events, and people with unique talents and experiences within Lancaster County.
  
  Aniya also worked at WMAR ABC 2 News as a Sales Assistant and at the AFRO American Newspapers as an Executive Assistant and Media correspondent. Aniya interned at WEAA Gospel Grace 88.9 and worked at her alma mater’s radio station, WWPJ at Point Park University, where she gained skills and a passion for radio.
  
  Aniya grew up in Baltimore, Maryland and attended the Baltimore School for the arts for high school with a concentration in acting. She continued to hone her skills and passion for storytelling and later graduated from Point Park University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting and Broadcast Reporting. Aniya is eager to continue her journey with storytelling in her role with WITF, as she aims to shed a light on real people and real stories within Pennsylvania in a variety of mediums.

 Sarah Boden / WESA

Knopp CEO Mike Bozik (second from left) stands in the Knopp lab with scientists Kelly Picchione (left,) Dave Mareska (second from right) and Chuck Flentge.

Airdate: March 28th, 2023

According to Pew Research Center, people of color and women remain underrepresented in STEM fields.

Another recent report stated that women and students of color drop out of STEM courses or leave STEM fields due to uninviting atmospheres, difficult weed-out classes, and STEM courses that do not show their relevancy.

Dr. Sue Mukherjee, chief student success officer and chief information officer at Cheney University, Dr. Bilita Mattes, executive director of STEM-UP Network at Harrisburg University Science and Technology, and Oluwatomilola Taiwo, medical biotechnology student at Harrisburg University joined us on The Spark Tuesday to discuss the importance of diversity in STEM fields and how local universities are working to support that.

STEM students, specifically women and people of color, are deterred from pursing STEM fields due to feeling a sense of isolation, lack of support, unconscious biases, math intimidation, the fear of some STEM jobs becoming automated due to artificial intelligence and more. Dr. Mukherjee and Dr. Mattes, said the mentorship opportunities, diverse faculty and the Harrisburg University STEM- UP Network helps women and people of color to overcome some of those challenges.

“The reality of the tragedy is that we lose 50% of those who go into STEM professions in the first ten to twelve years of their career,” Dr. Mattes said. “And it’s often for research reasons that we can do something about at the individual level. So that’s how we develop our programs. That’s the point of our community.”

For more information about STEM-UP Network visit hut3st.harrisburgu.edu/stemupnetwork/.