Turning the STEM Tide: An Approach for Mentoring 

Young Women on How to Thrive in STEM Careers

by MW Cole

ARL-TR-7029 August 2014

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Army Research Laboratory

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ARL-TR-7029 August 2014

Turning the STEM Tide: An Approach for Mentoring 

Young Women on How to Thrive in STEM Careers

MW Cole

Weapons and Materials Research Directorate, ARL

Approved for public release; distribution unlimited. 
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14. ABSTRACT

The committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine (CWSEM) advocates and promotes actions to increase the 

participation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Even when a large number 

of women enter STEM professions, data show that women do not advance professionally at the same rate as men. Reasons for 

this are attributed to that fact that many women in academic, industry, and government STEM sectors end up in low-tier 

and/or part-time/shared positions to accommodate family and family-related social demands. To mitigate this trend, it is 

critical to initiate mentoring and role model networking relationships for young women interested in STEM careers early-on. 

Thus, we have developed the Young Women in Science and Engineering (YWISE) annual workshop for high school girls 

interested in pursuing STEM careers. The mentoring program provides girls unprecedented access to successful women who 

have thrived in STEM disciplines, facilitating candid interactive discussions on trends, professional and personal life balance, 

and obstacles and opportunities for women in STEM fields. This report discusses YWISE and its mission to connect these 

future female scientists and engineers with successful women in STEM fields not only to inspire them to pursue STEM but

also mentor them at an early age on how to thrive in STEM careers.

15. SUBJECT TERMS

mentoring, STEM, women in STEM

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Melanie W Cole

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iii

Contents

List of Figures iv

List of Tables iv

Acknowledgments v

1. Introduction and Background 1

1.1 Women and STEM..........................................................................................................1

1.2 An Incremental Glimpse of the STEM Pipeline .............................................................2

2. The Young Women in Science and Engineering (YWISE) Workshop 4

3. Workshop Assessment and Impact 8

4. Conclusion 11

5. References 12

List of Symbols, Abbreviations, and Acronyms 13

Distribution List 14
iv

List of Figures

Fig. 1 A schematic representation of the STEM pipeline showing women entering (Xin) the 

pipe and cracks along the pipe enabling female losses (L) from the pipeline. The amount 

of women exiting (Xout) the STEM pipeline is significantly less than the amount of 

women who entered due to losses along the STEM pipeline. ...................................................2

Fig. 2 Percentage of women in select STEM occupations from 1960 to 2000 (Hill et al., 

2010 pg. 14) ...............................................................................................................................4

List of Tables

Table 1 Doctorate degrees earned by women in STEM fields in1966 and 2006 (Hill et al., 

2010 p. 12) .................................................................................................................................3

Table 2 Mentoring words of wisdom for thriving in the STEM arena ..........................................8

Table 3 Results of YWISE student evaluation for 2011/(2012)/[2014] ........................................9

Table 4 Summary of participant comments for the YWISE mentoring workshop......................10
v

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) for my ARL Fellows Stipend, which 

helped to fund this Young Women in Science and Engineering (YWISE) Mentoring Workshop. I

would also like to gratefully acknowledge Aberdeen High School and Battelle Memorial Institute

for their co-investments, which have made this YWISE Workshop possible since 2011. Finally, I

would like to thank of the other dedicated individuals for their fruitful and thoughtful 

contributions that has enabled the YWISE Workshops:

1. Yvonne Gabriel (teacher at the Science and Math Academy, Aberdeen High School) for 

her dedication, enthusiasm, and many insightful contributions, which significantly aided 

the success of this YWISE Mentoring Workshop since 2011.

2. T’Jae Gibson, (Public Affairs and journalist, ARL) for providing continual dedication to 

this workshop since 2011 and for her amazing journalistic skills in creating public 

awareness through local and national media with respect to the YWISE Mentoring 

Workshop, which has made this workshop an National Treasure within the science, 

technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) mentoring community. 

3. Emma Dill (Battelle Memorial Institute) for providing continual support, insightful 

contributions, and amazing organization skills, which have significantly aided the success 

of this Mentoring Workshop since 2011.

4. Janice L King (Battelle Memorial Institute) for providing continual support and insightful 

contributions, which have significantly aided the success of this Mentoring Workshop since 

2011.

5. Janice Rhodes (Battelle Memorial Institute) for providing the Battelle support efforts and 

delivering several opening speeches, which motivated the young women who participated 

in this YWISE Mentoring Workshop.

6. Dean Ertwine (Battelle Memorial Institute) for providing the Battelle support efforts since 

2011 and believing that this Mentoring Workshop could make a difference and inspire 

many young women in the local Aberdeen area.
vi

INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
1

1. Introduction and Background

1.1 Women and STEM

Many definitions are offered for the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), 

occupations; however, from the technology point of view in this report, STEM refers to the 

physical, biological, and agricultural sciences; computer science; the engineering disciplines, and 

mathematics. The STEM workforce is crucial to America’s national economy; hence, expanding,

developing, and maintaining the STEM workforce is a critical issue for the US. According to the 

US Census Bureau, in 2011 women composed 26% of the STEM workforce (USCB, 1970–

2011). It should be noted that the US census grouped social scientists within their STEM 

database, which skews the numbers of the women STEM workers to an inflated value. 

Specifically, the US Census Bureau determined that over the last 20 years women made up over 

half of the social science workforce, while at the same time women in technology fields such as 

the engineering disciplines made up only 13% of the workforce. Thus, lumping social scientists

into the STEM data mix falsely inflates that actual numbers of women in STEM occupations. 

Therefore, the actual percentage of women within the STEM occupations as defined by 

technologists (omitting social scientists) is significantly lower than that reported via US census 

statistics, confirming that women are still vastly underrepresented in STEM professions.

If one considers candidates for STEM careers as moving along a pipeline from elementary 

school to secondary school to college to advanced degrees and eventually into STEM 

occupations, one would hope that the amount of women exiting the pipeline would be a large 

percentage of those at the onset of the pipeline (Fig. 1), hence constituting a pipeline with 

minimal “leaks.” Unfortunately “minimal leaks” in the pipeline is not the case, for example,

considering women in tenure-track professorships, the “leaky pipeline” is well documented 

(Blickenstaff, 2005). Research statistics clearly indicate that the female STEM pipeline definitely 

leaks (NSB, 2010). Reasons for the “leaky pipeline” have been an intense area of study, and 

among such studies, a survey by Preston (2004) stands out as it represents data reflective of those 

women leaving the field as opposed to the majority of studies, which concentrate on those 

women remaining in the pipeline. Preston (2004) surveyed 1,688 scientists (excluding social 

scientists) and engineers, and reported that women leave science careers in greater numbers than 

men. Her research determined that women who pursued academia as their career choice exited 

their occupations at a rate of 14% versus 3.7% for their male counterparts. Additional findings of 

her study determined that married females with doctorate degrees were 11% less likely than 

single women to work in science. Another study by Mason and Goulden (2002)showed that the 

effect of having children significantly affected women’s retention in STEM academic careers. 

Their data, which consisted of a survey of 4,457 facility members, showed that women are less 

likely to have children in the pre-tenure stage than men, suggesting that women are delaying 
2

marriage and children, hence reinforcing the perception that to “make it” in STEM academia a 

women cannot flourish and raise a family at the same time. In addition, data from Preston’s 

(2004) study also determined that women’s discontent with science, i.e., the manner in which it 

was conducted, the work climate/culture, and the unfavorable interpersonal interactions with 

their male colleagues within their institutions, are some of the major reasons that women exit 

their scientific careers. Other reasons for leaving STEM included lack of mentorship or 

guidance, a female-unfriendly culture, and excessively long work hours; however, the career 

demands (complexity and workload) were not considered unreasonable or difficult.

Fig. 1 A schematic representation of the STEM pipeline showing women entering (Xin) the pipe and 

cracks along the pipe enabling female losses (L) from the pipeline. The amount of women 

exiting (Xout) the STEM pipeline is significantly less than the amount of women who entered 

due to losses along the STEM pipeline.

1.2 An Incremental Glimpse of the STEM Pipeline

Over the last two decades, the US has tried to increase the number of women in STEM 

occupations by encouraging STEM exposure for girls in middle and secondary school. This idea 

is that if more girls are “stuffed” into the STEM pipeline, a larger number of women will exit the 

pipeline; hence, women will no longer be an underrepresented class in STEM occupations. The

education, science, and engineering communities charged with increasing STEM exposure early 

on have done an excellent job with traditional STEM outreach activities, for example, having 

scientists visit and speak at local schools, take your child to the lab day, eCybermission, science 

fairs, and designing and administering science and engineering modules aimed at middle and 

high school students. While all of these programs are indeed excellent and reach out equally to 

both young women and men, it is apparent that there are still leaks in the female STEM pipeline 

that are still limiting the output of women into the STEM occupational workforce. Thus, there is 

a critical need to place a larger emphasis on encouraging young women not only to enter, but 

remain within the STEM pipeline. To accomplish this, an incremental assessment of the major 

sections of the STEM pipeline is critical for 1) identifying at what stage the “leaks” occur and 

2) unraveling the reasons responsible for the leaks. 
3

Examining the data trends for average credits earned in mathematics and science, by gender,

from 1990–2009 revealed that high school girls earned math and science credits at the same rate 

as boys (USDE, NCES, 2009). These data suggest that the female STEM pipeline is fairly 

strong, showing minimal female leakage characteristics up to the end of high school.

Unfortunately, the transition from high school to college has a profound effect on the flow of 

women through the pipeline, constituting a “leaky stage.” It is well known that women make up 

the majority of college students; however, women are less likely to major in STEM fields with 

respect to their male counterparts. According to the National Science Foundation (NSFDSRS, 

2009) in 2006, 30% of male freshmen versus only 15% of females planned to major in STEM 

fields, and if biological sciences are excluded, this figure drops drastically to 20% of males 

versus a mere 5% of females undertaking majors in engineering, computer, or physical sciences. 

Thus, although graduating high school girls are well qualified for STEM majors, many of these 

academically capable women never pursue or elect to leave STEM majors while in college. 

Further examination of the STEM pipeline in the time domain shows that the number of women 

earning doctorial degrees in STEM disciplines has improved significantly from 1996 to 2006

(Table 1). However, at the doctorate level, women still remain underrepresented in every STEM 

field except biology. This suggests that the transition from undergraduate to graduate school 

constitutes another “leak” in the flow of women through the STEM pipeline.

Table 1 Doctorate degrees earned by women in STEM fields in1966 and 2006 (Hill et al., 2010 p. 12)

Figure 2 shows that women’s representation in the STEM workforce has improved greatly from 

1960 to 2000. During this time frame, women in the biological sciences have displayed a sizable 

presence since 1960. However, for other STEM fields, such as the physical sciences and 

engineering disciplines, the growth of women in these fields has been significantly smaller.

Considering physics-related fields, in 1960 women made up 3.4% of the workforce only to 

increase to 13.9% four decades later; hence, women still make up a small fraction of physicsbased occupations. Such data indicate that there are other leaks in the pipeline as women 

transition from graduate school into their STEM occupations and there are post-education losses 

solely within the STEM career workforce. If the leaks in the female STEM pipeline are not 

addressed and mitigated, the pipeline may continue to trickle out only a very small number of 

women into the STEM occupations, especially for the physical sciences and engineering 

disciplines. Similarly, if retention of women in STEM occupations is not addressed, the pipeline

may ultimately run dry.
4

Fig. 2 Percentage of women in select STEM occupations from 1960 to 2000

(Hill et al., 2010 pg. 14)

2. The Young Women in Science and Engineering (YWISE) Workshop

As previously discussed, the onset of the STEM leaky pipeline appears to begin as young women 

transition from high school into college; hence, it is important to offer STEM mentoring 

programs to women at the high school level. Jahan et al.’s (1999) research indicated that most 

young women enrolled in college science and engineering programs were strongly influenced 

and/or mentored by female role models; therefore, mentoring young women at the high school 

and early college stage is vital for female retention in STEM college majors. Thus, to address 

this mentoring need, we have developed and implemented the Young Women in Science and 

Engineering (YWISE) program. The YWISE Workshop is sponsored and funded by three

organizations, namely, the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) via an ARL Fellows Stipend, 

the Battelle Eastern Science and Engineering Center, and Aberdeen High School, all which are 

co-located in Aberdeen, MD. The workshop is a one-day event that is free to the participants. 

The workshop’s organizing committee consists of scientists from ARL, executive management 

professionals from Battelle, and science and math teachers from Aberdeen High School. The 

workshop was started in 2011 and targets high school girls who are highly motivated to pursue 

STEM occupations. The workshop’s overarching goal is not only to inspire the next generation 

of young women to consider STEM careers, but more importantly educate them on the 

challenges and opportunities that they will encounter as an underrepresented class in such a 

career. The workshop brings together accomplished women in STEM professions and high 

school girls to provoke thoughtful discussions, mentor these young women on STEM college and 

career survival, and provide them strategies for thriving in the STEM arena. The workshop was
5

constructed to be a “forum without boundaries,” where no topic is off limits within the 

workshop’s discussion venue. 

The workshop objectives include the following:

1. Offer young women a unique mentoring opportunity that currently in not part of their 

traditional high school guidance and educational curriculum inventory.

2. Provide motivation, guidance, encouragement, and support strategies to young women for 

addressing and overcoming the challenges they will encounter as an underrepresented class 

in the STEM arena.

3. Offer unprecedented access to successful women in STEM with candid discussions focused 

on women and STEM careers, achieving balance between profession and personal life, and 

the challenges and opportunities encountered by women in STEM fields.

4. Address issues such as confidence building and creating a sense of belonging for women 

STEM majors in the college domain; understanding the climate/culture of the STEM 

college/workplace and defining strategies to achieve a “sense of fit” to enable confidence

and satisfaction; understanding the stereotypes and biases toward women in STEM; and 

seeking/developing strategies for maintaining technical competence without sacrificing

“likeability,” both which are required for STEM career advancement.

5. Teach the value of mentoring, relationships, and role models for navigating the STEM 

pipeline.

To successfully achieve these objectives, the framework of the YWISE Workshop included

invited speakers, panel discussions, and relationship-building mixers. The forum hosts five 

successful women speakers, who are diverse in STEM fields, as well as in ethnicity, age, and 

stages of development within their STEM careers. The STEM professionals included women 

from academia, industry, government, medical professionals, and entrepreneurs who discussed

the balance of personal and professional aspects of their lives/careers, and trade-offs required for 

professional success and personal equilibrium. The speakers also highlighted the challenges they 

faced from college to career, and the strategies they used to endure/overcome these obstacles and 

celebrate the opportunities. The forum was designed to encourage interaction between the 

speakers and students, and engage everyone in open and frank discussions. After the 

presentations, the venue included an interactive mixer (to initiate and foster relationships 

between the participants and the speakers) followed by a few talks from young women who 

graduated for Harford county local high schools and are now early-career women in STEM 

occupations. The workshop concluded with an interactive panel discussion, which enabled the 

workshop participants to connect with the speakers by asking questions and engaging in candid 

conversations.
6

As an illustrative exercise to understand the underpinning mentoring mechanics of this event,

several of the YWISE speakers and their mentoring messages are highlighted below:

1. A pediatric surgeon and assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, University of 

Maryland School of Medicine. This speaker, a 40ish woman of Asian descent, discussed 

the trials and triumphs of performing delicate surgery on small children. She also discussed 

how she’s become a proficient surgeon by believing in herself, seeking guidance and 

mentorship from senior female surgeons, and accepting the fact that you can achieve all 

your goals (both personal and professional), but probably not at the same time. She 

discussed how she took a few years off from her medical career to nurture her family, but 

how during this hiatus she maintained contact with her peers and continued “networking”

within the medical-surgical community, both of which enabled a smoother career reentry.

2. Associate professor of mathematics at the US Naval Academy and Research Faculty, Johns 

Hopkins University School of Medicine who discussed her career as a college professor 

and her passion as a champion swing dancer and avid slalom water skier. This speaker, a 

35ish Caucasian women, told how she fell victim to the stereotype that “girls are not as 

good at math as boys.” In college she was often told that because she “struggled” with 

math and the associated STEM fields that required a significant mathematics foundation 

that she did not have what it took to pursue her math and operations research career goals. 

She spoke on how becoming engaged with her female math professors for educational and 

cultural guidance helped her to realize that the word “struggle” is not a bad word. She 

highlighted that given the complexity and abstract nature of the STEM disciplines, of 

course, one struggles, it’s hard; innovation and discovery are difficult! She stressed that “to 

struggle” is part of challenging yourself. She stated that her pursuit of dance and sports in 

parallel with her career path helped her to mitigate STEM stresses by counterbalancing her 

academic struggles with her natural talents. 

3. Professor and chairperson of information systems and operations research at Loyola 

University Maryland, who spoke on intelligent decision technologies and her career path, 

which has spanned from teaching math to the gifted and talented middle school children to 

becoming a senior mathematician and technical manager at a government laboratory to 

becoming a full professor and academic director of Executive MBA Programs at the 

University Maryland. This particular speaker, a 55ish Caucasian woman, discussed how 

she balanced family life with her educational and career desires, whereby she accomplished

her educational career aspirations incrementally over a longer time frame with respect to 

her male counterparts. She stressed that one can have it all, but probably not at the same 

time. She also highlighted that the STEM career climate within her government career 

organization (male dominated) left her with a feeling on not belonging, and over time 

lowered her confidence. She discussed the avenues that she undertook to mitigate this 

threat to include enhancing her technical competence, networking with others external to 
7

her organization, volunteering within the technical community, and most importantly,

never giving up.

4. A senior chemical engineer with the Army’s Chemical Biological Command, who spoke on 

the challenges of performing in her career while facing bias associated with being a double 

minority (black female) within a male-dominated STEM workforce. This speaker, a 50ish 

black female, was the first black scientist hired into her organization. She highlighted that 

the biased attitudes of both her peers and supervisors created an unhealthy workplace 

climate, which, in turn, created obstacles of unfairness, lack of opportunities, and the 

feeling of “not fitting in.” She discussed her strategies to mitigate these obstacles, which 

included informal mentoring from other female scientists and engineers external to her 

organization and becoming more active within professional societies to gain access to the 

technical networking that is critical for success in a STEM research career. She also 

emphasized that it is important to realize that sometimes you cannot overcome certain 

obstacles so you must define strategies to move forward. Explicitly, she discussed how she 

turned her obstacles into her successes by leveraging her skills in engineering, innovative 

thinking, and program management to transform her quilting hobby into a viable business.

She used her STEM skills to become a flourishing entrepreneur, as a quilt artist, quilt tool 

designer, successful author, and an accomplished publisher. 

Aside from the speaker presentations another important aspect of the YWISE venue in 2014 was 

the inclusion of recent college graduates at the onset of their STEM occupations. One of these 

young women recently received her BS in environmental science and is currently working as a 

scientist in a government laboratory and the other young woman recently completed her BS and

MS degrees in computer science and is working in the industrial sector. Both young women 

concurred that they were academically very well prepared for STEM college classes but that the 

college STEM environment still posed many obstacles. The sense of “not fitting in,” gender bias, 

stereotyping, and lack of inclusion in the male-dominated study groups or cliques were echoed 

by both of these speakers. Both women stated that working with other female college peers, 

inclusive of female study groups and social gatherings, within and external to their respective 

majors, helped them to cope with the negative aspects of the STEM college culture. The young 

woman who earned her degrees in computer science stated that joining her department’s women 

in computer science organization helped her to form relationships with other female computer 

science majors and gain a sense of belonging. Finally, the last segment of the workshop, devoted 

to the panel session, enabled everyone to engage in thought-provoking discussions. The girls 

were very interactive with the speakers and asked questions related to both their personal lives 

and professional careers.

Considering the contents of the presentations and panel discussions, it is clear that all of these 

accomplished women, regardless of age, race, and/or STEM occupation, encountered many 

challenges/obstacles associated with being an underrepresented class in the STEM arena. The 

presentations highlighted that the college STEM environment often leaves young women with 
8

the sense that they do not belong simply because of their gender. This promotes the feeling of 

“not fitting in,” which often results in a decline in women’s confidence and is an institutional 

problem. Concerns of how to balance your passions (dance, sports, volunteerism, etc.) with 

educational career aspirations was also discussed by the speakers. Also highlighted was how to

achieve equilibrium between family responsibilities and the STEM career path. All the speakers 

stated that the nature of their work in STEM was exciting and attainable; however, the STEM 

college environment and workplace culture often caused disruption and dissatisfaction in their 

careers paths. All agreed that mentoring and defining strategies for STEM success are necessary 

to help women navigate the STEM career path obstacles and enable them to thrive on the STEM 

playing field. Table 2 displays a consolidated list of “words of wisdom” that were put forward to 

help young women steer their course as they travel through STEM pipeline.

Table 2 Mentoring words of wisdom for thriving in the STEM arena

3. Workshop Assessment and Impact

For experimental research, it is critical to have metrics that indicate the success and impact of the 

project. For all three years of the YWISE Workshop, an assessment survey was administered to 
9

the participants. This evaluation was very successful in characterizing the impact of the 

workshop and its curriculum. The survey was administered to the participants at the workshop’s 

conclusion, and the participants were given ample time to complete and provide comments. The 

participant evaluation survey is displayed in Table 3. The survey demonstrates that the workshop 

improved over the three-year period, i.e., achieved progressively higher scores for each question 

within the forward time domain. For all three years, “The Value Proposition Met” question 

clearly indicates that this mentoring event put forward a positive information gain for the 

majority (>85%) of the participants. The higher scores in all categories for the 2014 event may 

be due to the venue modification, whereby former students served as speakers and discussed 

their STEM college experiences. The participants resonated with these 22-year-old-ish speakers,

most likely because there was a negligible generation gap between these speakers and the 

participants. For all three years, all the participants strongly agreed that they now had a better 

understanding of the opportunities and challenges that women in STEM fields encounter and

 95% of the participants concurred that they understand the importance of mentoring as a 

“positive” strategy to mitigate obstacles. The participant survey also included a section that 

requested that the participants share their comments as to what was useful and most interesting to 

them with respect to the YWISE event. Table 4 summarizes several select comments put forward 

by the young women who participated in the workshops. These comments can be considered a 

“qualitative” measure or metric of success for the YWISE Mentoring Workshop. The impact of 

this project was extremely positive and there was an overwhelming response from the 

participants to continue this mentoring event with the hope of exposing more young women to 

this venue.

Table 3 Results of YWISE student evaluation for 2011/(2012)/[2014]
10

Table 4 Summary of participant comments for the YWISE mentoring workshop

No YWISE Participant Comments

1 I did not realize how motivating this workshop would be. It seems that my dreams to be in science may 

come true. I was glad to see that this workshop was not like all the other traditional outreach programs we 

have had in the past. It was actually valuable and motivating, thank you!

2 Very inspiring, being in a male dominated career and seeing how to navigate through it all. Made me 

rethink my future plans, I am excited about my future and now understand how to be better prepared for 

all that I may encounter in college as an engineering major.

3 Very inspiring talks and panel discussions. I never really thought about how to get through the STEM 

pipeline before. Finding a good mentor and support system seems to be critical for getting through all this, 

college and career. I feel better prepared

4 Very interesting to see how life can take you in so many directions. Liked hearing how the speakers 

balanced science/engineering with art and their personal lives. Speakers were awesome, thank you for the 

opportunity to be a part of this event! Very motivational!

5 The wisdom and encouragement of these women was amazing. Please continue to do this workshop next 

year; this event has sparked a light into my future. Thank you! 

6 The commitment and motivation provided by this workshop was amazing, thank you for the inspiration 

and the opportunity.

7 This was amazing and inspirational

8 This workshop made me feel that I could do anything in life as long as I put my mind to it. Thank you so 

much for this opportunity, this pushed my mind in a new direction.

9 This workshop was excellent; please do this again next year!

10 This was so much better that all the STEM stuff we get elsewhere, it was more of a reality check to let us 

know that mentoring is important to success in STEM education and careers.

11 Fun, engaging, and interesting, I will remember this for the rest of my life, thank you for providing us this 

opportunity!

12 Really enjoyed the “good housewives guide”, focus on persistence and not being discouraged by having to 

struggle.

13 Enjoyed hearing how women have to balance home-work situations. Definitely keep this workshop going, 

it was amazing and it would be great if more girls could benefit from this.

14 Excellent presenters, so much information was presented, whether it is educational/academic or personal. 

The most relevant to me was the balance between creative artistic pursuits and academics, I never want to 

choose between that and science. Truly motivating event!

15 The determination of these women to succeed through adversity was inspiring and motivating.

16 All the information presented was useful; however the most interesting was hearing the individual stories 

of the speakers, truly motivating
11

Table 4 Summary of participant comments for the YWISE mentoring workshop (continued)

No YWISE Participant Comments

17 Thank you for inviting me, it really opened my eyes a lot. I feel more confident about attending college in 

the fall, I am majoring in engineering

18 I had expected all of the speakers to have come from “well-to do” families, but a lot of them struggled and 

had it very difficult. Very inspiring and motivating.

19 The speakers were true role models, inspired me so much!!!

20 The speakers gave me encouragement, and they taught me that mentoring is helpful for everyone esp. for 

women in physical sciences and engineering careers.

21 The workshop provided me with tools for helping me succeed in science and in life. Thank you

22 This was a great empowering program, please keep it going!

23 Loved the different backgrounds and perspectives of the speakers.

24 I would recommend this event to all my friends, very informative and inspiring! Very cool event, thank 

you for this inspiring opportunity!

25 Amazing event, I learned so much thank you! Hope it continues!

4. Conclusion

The literature clearly demonstrates that the female STEM pipeline is very leaky, hence causing 

women to be an underrepresented class in the STEM work force. It is also known that as women 

navigate through the STEM pipeline high school girls entering college are very well qualified to 

pursue STEM majors in college and ultimately enter into STEM careers, yet the statistics show 

that women entering and retaining their status in STEM occupations is very low. We advocate

that exposing high school age young women to mentoring programs like YWISE prior to 

entering college may help mitigate some of the leaks in the college and graduate school sections 

of the STEM pipeline, hence serving to augment the number of women retained in STEM 

occupations. YWISE is not a traditional “STEM Outreach” program, instead YWISE is a 

mentoring event, which was designed to enlighten, educate, and prepare young women for the 

challenges that they will encounter in their path from the college environment to their STEM 

careers. Three years of metrics from the YWISE workshops demonstrate that this mentoring 

program was well received by its participants, that the YWISE venue put forward a positive 

information gain to the majority of the participants, and that it was considered to be a critical 

element in their extramural educational curriculum. The impact of this mentoring project was 

extremely positive and there was an overwhelming response from the participants to continue 

this YWISE mentoring event in the future.
12

5. References

Blickenstaff JC. Women and science careers: leaky pipeline or gender filter? Gender and 

Education. 2005;17(4):369–368.

Hill C, Corbott C, St. Rose A. Why so few ? Women in science, technology, engineering and 

mathematics. AAUW Washington (DC) 20036. ISBN: 978-1-879922-40-2. 2010.

Jahan K, Sukumaran B, Head L, Keil, ZO. Mentoring experiences by faculty and students. 

Proceedings of the midatlantic fall ASEE conference, Harrisburg, PA; 1999.

Mason MA, Goulden M. Do babies matter: the effect of family formation on the life long careers 

of academic men and women. Acedeme. 2002;88(6):21–27.

National Science Board (NSB). Science and engineering indicators 2010, NSB 10-01, Arlington, 

VA: National Science Foundation; 2010.

National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics (NSFDSRS). Women, 

minorities, and persons with disabilities in science and engineering: 2009 (NSF 09-305). 

Arlington (VA); 2009. [Retrieved from website www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd ]

Preston AE. Leaving science: occupational exit from scientific careers. New York (NY): Russell 

Sage Foundation; 2004.

United States Census Bureau (USCB) 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 decennial censuses and 2011 

American Community Survey 

(http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/pdf/cb13162_stem female.pdf )

United States Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics 2011-462, 

(USDE, NCES,) (2009). The nation’s report card: America’s high school graduates: Results 

from the 2009 NAEP High School Transcript Study.
13

List of Symbols,Abbreviations, and Acronyms

ARL US Army Research Laboratory

CWSEM committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine

STEM science, technology, engineering and mathematics 

YWISE Young Women in Science and Engineering 
14

1 DEFENSE TECHNICAL 

(PDF) INFORMATION CTR 

DTIC OCA 

2 DIRECTOR 

(PDF) US ARMY RESEARCH LAB 

RDRL CIO LL 

IMAL HRA MAIL & RECORDS MGMT 

1 GOVT PRINTG OFC 

(PDF) A MALHOTRA 

1 DIR USARL 

(PDF) RDRL WMM E 

M W COLE

2 DIR USARL 

(PDF) RDRL LOP 

TANYA J GIBSON

THOMAS MOYER

1 DIR USARL 

(PDF) RDRL LOA 

SANDRA K YOUNG

1 DIR USARL 

(PDF) RDRL WMS 

MARK R VANLANDINGHAM

1 DIR USARL 

(PDF) RDRL WM 

PATRICK J BAKER

1 DIR USARL 

(PDF) RDRL WMM 

JEFFREY S ZABINSKI

1 DIR USARL 

(PDF) RDRL WMM C 

PAMELA J KASTE

1 DIR USARL 

(PDF) RDRL WML B 

ROSE ANN PESCE-RODRIGUEZ

1 DIR USARL 

(PDF) RDRL SEE I 

WENDY L SARNEY