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Women in Tech: Where are they?

nasa.gov

In this segment of KSMU's weekly series STEM Spots, offered in conjunction with the Department of Physics, Astronomy and Materials Science at Missouri State University, Dr. David Cornelison looks at gender diversity in the technology field.

As our department begins a new program in speech processing with the students from the local Go Caps program, I couldn't help but notice the lack of women in the group. As I have mentioned before, we are struggling to increase gender diversity within some technical fields, especially physics, engineering, and computer science. We sometimes worry that the university system may be erecting barriers without knowing it. However, with no women in a tech strand of nearly thirty high school students, it is apparent that the issues start earlier that that.

In the show we talk about ways we can work to increase the participation of women in these important technical fields.

Dr. David Cornelison has been working as an educator and scientist in Arizona and Missouri universities for the last 32 years. From 2010-2018, he was the head of the Department of Physics, Astronomy and Materials Science at Missouri State University. His research interests lie at the intersection of experimental condensed-matter physics and astrophysics, while his educational efforts have focused on outreach to the K-12 school system. Most of all, he believes in curiosity-driven learning in the sciences and all other fields.