Women Advancing STEM Panel sponsored by IIT Association of Greater New England (IIT AGNE)

IIT AGNE, the IIT Alumni Association of New England held a panel discussion titled Women Advancing STEM on April 16, 2016 at the Cambridge Innovation Center in Cambridge, MA.  The panel was moderated by Rita Advani and featured Chitra Javdekar, Dean of STEM, Mass Bay Community College Kathy Vandiver, Director of the Community Outreach Education and Engagement Core at the Center for Environmental Health Sciences and Mondira Pant, Lead Technologist, Intel Corp.
The event opened with a welcome note by Ranjani Saigal, who shared information about IIT AGNE and the upcoming leadership conference on Aug 12-14.  IIT AGNE, an organization that was started by IIT Alumni, who drawing on their own background and experience in the STEM fields and realizing the importance of STEM education and awareness for the future of the country, created the organization to work within the greater New England community, amongst other things, to help raise awareness of the importance of STEM education and careers within the economy. The organization is not limited to IITians but welcomes everyone who may be interested in STEM.
“At IIT we had very few women.  While our numbers are limited, many of the IIT Alumni have gone on to create great impact in a multitude of fields. We are here today to celebrate the accomplishments of Women in STEM and discuss opportunities and challenges for women in the field of STEM” said Saigal.  IIT AGNE is hosting a leadership conference on Aug 12-14 in Rhode Island. Here is the link to the event. http://www.iitagne.org/. Mondira Pant is the co-chair of the IIT AGNE event. Other core team members of the women’s panel include Dr. Rukmini Vijaykumar and Durriya Doctor.
Rita Advani, the Director for Regional Programming for High Touch High Tech of New England moderated the panel. Each panelist spoke about their journey and talked about how being a woman has been an opportunity and a challenge.  Each journey outlined the influence of mentors in the life of the speakers. For most it was their father who encouraged them to become an engineer.  The panelists discussed the challenge of often being a minority and them needing to work harder than their peers. There were other stories on the positive side of how women could network with women at other institutions to have very productive projects.
The panelists felt strongly that girls in middle school are very important target for STEM educators. Kathy Vandervier used her experience as a science teacher to later on develop LEGO models that could easily explain the concept of DNA to younger students. Chitra Javdekar talked about the courses at community colleges, which could be an excellent opportunity for women who may consider switching into STEM careers. She also cautioned that a STEM career may not be the right option for every girl.
There were many youngsters who had a range of questions from how to engage in research and how to find internship opportunities in the STEM field.  There was a health discussion at the end of the session on how work place rules and attitudes can change to be more accommodative of women who may need to take maternity leave.
The discussions clearly indicated that there is much that still needs to be done if women need to play a larger role in the STEM field.
Panelist Bio’s

Chitra Javdekar

Chitra N. Javdekar is Dean of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) at Massachusetts Bay (MassBay) Community College since July 2013. As Dean, she oversees various STEM departments at the College as well as grants, projects, and initiatives. Her office is responsible for managing budgets and activities such as industry collaboration that advance the College’s mission. In addition to developing new academic programs at the college for the college’s traditional and non-traditional student population, she has led the development of several new enrichment and STEM mentoring and outreach programs for K-12 and college students at MassBay in collaboration with community and higher education partners.

Prior to becoming the Dean, Dr. Javdekar served as Department Chair and Professor of Engineering at MassBay.  She holds a M.S. in Civil (Structural) Engineering from Mumbai University, India, and a Ph.D. in Civil (Structural) Engineering from Tufts University, Massachusetts.

Kathleen Mead Vandiver

Kathleen M. Vandiver is presently the director of the Community Outreach Education and Engagement Core (COE2C) for the MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences (CEHS). She enjoys the position at MIT very much, because it uses both her training in biomedical research and in science education.   Kathy received her PhD from the Tufts Medical School (now the Sackler Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences) and became a principal investigator on NIH and NIEHS grants through the Small Business Innovative Research program (SBIR) in the mid-1980s.  The company earned an R& D 100 Award in MA. Then after several years, in preparation for a new career, she entered Harvard Graduate School of Education to earn a Master’s in Education.

Kathy taught middle school science for 15 years in the Lexington Public Schools before working at MIT.  Her career as an innovative science teacher began with a bold collaboration with her 6th grade Teacher Team at Diamond Middle School.  With Lexington Foundation funding, they produced a project-based curriculum called Horace’s Fridays.  Also while at Diamond Middle School, Kathy designed and developed cell biology manipulatives and lesson plans that were later sold to the LEGO Education Company.  These original models were created from standard LEGO bricks and components.   The key part of the innovation however, was that the models were designed simulate how molecules actually work and interact, unlike most molecular models that are designed as statues.  The Vandiver models can be used to simulate cell processes like DNA transcription and translation that are difficult to learn.  When Kathy joined MIT in 2005, she improved the models further and set up a unique gallery at the MIT Museum for teaching the molecular biology with the LEGO DNA and Proteins to people of all ages.  Kathy now holds an US patent with her husband, J. Kim Vandiver, for the development of the latest DNA and Protein versions that can now be mass produced and distributed.  The DNA sets were released in February this year and the Protein Sets will soon follow this summer.

 

Gitika Srivastava

Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Navya Network (startup for medical decision making) and Partner/Founder KAHM Capital

Gitika graduated in computer science from Harvard University and has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. She has over fourteen years of experience as an entrepreneur and investor in early stage high tech and health care companies. Gitika was the CEO of Skyris Networks, which was acquired by Draper Fisher Jurvetson’s Timberline Venture Partners. She holds patents in distributed networking, databases, and search technologies, and decision making. Gitika is a pre-career tutor for undergraduates at Harvard and an advisor to many start-up companies and young entrepreneurs. She is also a Partner at KAHM Capital – an early stage venture capital firm, investing globally in high tech and health care and Founder/CEO at Navya Network – a startup for medical decision making.

Mondira (Mandy) Deb Pant

Academic Research Director at Intel, Dr. Mondira (Mandy) Deb Pant, works with leading academic researchers worldwide and technical experts at Intel to seed and drive research efforts in strategic areas of importance to the computing industry. Her core area of expertise includes VLSI devices and circuits, architecture, systems, on-chip power delivery, power management and power reduction. She has published 20+ technical papers in prestigious VLSI conferences and journals, has 2 issued patents and 5 pending patents.

Mandy received her Bachelors (B.Tech) in Computer Science and Engineering from I.I.T Kharagpur, India, a Masters (MS) in Electrical Engineering and a Doctorate (PhD) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.

Mandy is an active proponent of STE(A) M for Women and young girls and has participated in various efforts in promoting it across the nation. In 2009, Mandy was recognized by Mass High Tech (A Massachusetts High Tech Journal) as one of the top 10 upcoming Women to Watch in the New England area. In 2013, she was recognized by the India New England journal as one of the top 20 South Asian Women of 2013 in the New England area. She has recently risen to the role of Technical Chair for Intel’s biggest internal technical design conference.

She is a proud Mom to two young girls ages 14 and 11 and is an avid reader, traveler, dancer and yoga enthusiast.

Rita Advani (Moderator)

Rita Advani is currently the Director for Regional Programming for High Touch High Tech of New England (www.ScienceMadefunNE.net ), an organization bringing science enrichment programs to students in PreK – Grade 8 throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  She is also the President of Bush Pond Ventures, LLC an organization focused on increasing science literacy for PreK-Grade 12. She has developed an extensive science curriculum for preschool age students and a course to teach preschool educators on how to teach science to preschool age children. The course is accredited by MassAEYC (the Massachusetts Association for the Education of Young Children).

Rita also has over 30 years of experience in marketing strategy, global product management and emerging markets development, in the supply chain, healthcare and loss prevention engineering services industries.

Her civic engagement included election to the Town of Norfolk School Committee, appointment as Chair of the Energy Committee for the Town of Norfolk and appointment to a commission on education finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  As part of her interest in the field of home health care, she currently serves on the Board of the VNA Care Network & Hospice Foundation in the Atrius Health alliance.

A resident of Boston, she has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Kolkata, India and is an avid photographer