AAUW of State Convention May 20-21, 2016 Maine Maritime Academy, Castine, ME STEM to Stern: Making Waves into the Future

About our speakers and panelists

Sadie Alley Ferreira earned her B.S. in Power Engineering Technology from Maine Maritime Academy in 2003. After graduation, Sadie worked for four years at Cianbro as a Field Engineer and Project Engineer on several industrial projects. Some of those projects included building a wood and coal burning fluidized bed boiler in New Hampshire, decommissioning and demolition of a nuclear power plant site in Massachusetts, and relocating a boiler from Athens, Maine to Old Town, Maine. Later, Sadie moved on to work at Verso Paper in Bucksport in the Mechanical Maintenance department as Reliability Engineer. In the paper mill, Sadie’s focus area was in preventative maintenance, lubrication technology, and root cause failure analysis. Sadie is currently working for Sundog Solar, a local business that designs and installs Solar Hot Water and Solar Electric (Photovoltaic, or PV) systems in Maine.

Dr. Anne Applin was born and raised in Gulfport, Mississippi. She graduated from Southeastern Louisiana University (B.S. in Scientific Computing, 1992) and then earned an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Southern Mississippi (1994) and a Ph.D. in Computer Science Education from the University of Southern Mississippi (1999). She started her teaching career at Pearl River Community College in 1993, following which she taught at Ithaca College (NY) and Millsaps College (MS) before moving to Maine and developing a computer science program at Southern Maine Community College in 2011.

She is an active member of ACM-W (Association for Computing Machinery - Women) and NCWIT (National Center for Women in Technology) Academic Alliance. Currently, she is planning the first New England Celebration of Women in Computing to be held in Spring 2017 in southern Maine.

Marie Beckum serves as the Summer Programs Director for the Maine School of Science and Mathematics (MSSM). She oversees six weeks of kids’ camps, ages 10-14, and one week of STEM educators’ camp. Her responsibilities include strategic planning, communications, marketing/public relations, program development, and staff recruitment/training/retention. Marie holds a B.S. in actuarial science from the Ohio State University and has completed courses towards a master’s degree in teaching, with a specialization in mathematics.

Beckum and her husband, Thomas, live in Caribou with their young children, Scarlett and Warren. Marie is an avid runner and skier, and enjoys coaching cross-country, track and field, and alpine skiing in Aroostook County.

Rebecca Bell joined the Jackson Laboratory as a research assistant to Dr. Jennifer Trowbridge, after receiving a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Williams College (2015). Her research explores hematopoiesis and the regulation of stem cells in normal development and leukemia transformation. Becca’s attraction to research began after attending a summer program for high school students in genomics at the Mount Dessert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL). The course attracted aspiring young scientists from all over Maine and inspired her to consider pursuing biology in college. At Williams, she thoroughly enjoyed conducting her own honors thesis research study under Professor Swoap. The research at the Jackson Laboratory is motivated by a passion to cure human disease and attracts many of the brightest and most passionate laboratory scientists in the world. Becca is currently applying to medical schools and is looking forward to the unique interaction that arises from treating a patient in a clinical setting—each patient with a personal story, character, history and ultimately his or her own individual treatment and cure.

Becca enjoys skiing, running, hiking, kayaking and everything that the beautiful state of Maine has to offer.

Dr. Catherine Bevier is an Associate Professor of Biology at . She earned her B.S. in Biology at Indiana University and her Ph.D. in Ecology at the University of Connecticut. At Colby she offers courses in Animal Behavior, Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy, Biodiversity, and Exercise Physiology, and her research program focuses on frogs and lake ecosystems. Cathy is currently investigating the complex relationships among frogs, their vulnerability to an emerging pathogenic chytrid fungus, the antimicrobial components of their skin secretions, and variation in the frog skin microbiome. She has also worked with a collaborative research group on the Belgrade Lakes Watershed Sustainability Project, focusing her contributions on assessing the effect of different levels of residential development of shoreline properties on biotic and abiotic features of the inshore habitat.

Paige Brown is a senior at Bangor High School. She has been studying the pollution in Bangor Streams and has been developing solutions to the issues she found for the past two years. Last June she was awarded Maine’s 2015 Stockholm Junior Water Prize - recognizing valuable work on water-related science projects - for the first phase of her research. This year she was named one of the 40 top student scientists in the country by Intel's Science Talent Search and was awarded first place in Global Good and $150,000 for her work on developing cost effective solutions to the pollution she found affecting the streams. The project started when she was in her Advanced Placement Chemistry class, where she was assigned to analyze a water sample from a source near her home for phosphorus. She expanded this research to include each of Bangor’s streams already identified as impaired by pollution and then to the engineering component of actually fixing the problems she observed. Earlier this year, Brown and 100 other students from Maine attended the second Stormwater Management and Research Team training seminar at the , where she was the keynote speaker. Brown wants to study chemical engineering and is currently deciding among Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, and Stanford University.

Sarah Frisk earned a B.A. in both Computer Science and English from Colby College (2010). She is a Senior Software Developer at Vets First Choice in Portland, Maine, with a focus on web and mobile technologies. Outside of work, she is a conference speaker on topics ranging from Open Source to Indie Game Development, leads several tech meetups in the Portland, Maine area, and is the Project Lead for Chassis, a jQuery Foundation project. Outside of the world of STEM, Sarah enjoys making webcomics. To find out more about Sarah, visit sarahfrisk.com.

Angélique Harbert earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Maine (2002), an M.B.A. at Weber State University (2007) and a Systems Engineering Certificate at the University of Utah (2010). She has been employed in various capacities at Orbital ATK (formerly ATK Thiokol), a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies, since 2002. She currently serves as the chair of the Orbital ATK Professional Women’s Group.

Angie has been active in “Expanding Your Horizons,” a national non-profit group whose goal is to interest girls in grades 5-8 in science, technology, engineering and math. She has run workshops for 5 years and was a workshop presenter in 2011 and 2015. In 2013 she was the Chair of a local “Expanding Your Horizons” STEM conference and the Co-Chair in 2012. These conferences draw up to 500 girls at a time. In 2015, her workshop group did “Squishy Circuits.” Under Angie’s direction the girls made circuits (parallel and series) using Play-Doh®.

“Expanding Your Horizons” describes itself as an “organization dedicated to providing gateway STEM experiences to middle and high school girls that spark interest in STEM activities and careers. We are guided by the understanding that engaging with female STEM role models and participating in hands-on STEM activities can help girls begin to see themselves pursuing STEM activities and careers.” Please follow the following link to learn more about this organization http://www.eyhmain.org.

Dr. Dot McLane is a member of the AAUW Lansdale (PA) Branch and the AAUW Empire State (NY) Virtual Branch and is also president of AAUW of Pennsylvania. She has served as chair of the AAUW Branch Program Resource Committee and the AAUW STEM Task Force. She has also served on the AAUW Public Policy Committee and on the national AAUW Board of Directors since 2011. She is also a trained $tart $mart facilitator. Dot earned her bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University, her master’s and doctoral degrees from Drexel University, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. She has worked in the pharmaceutical industry and as a part-time public secondary school biology and chemistry teacher.

Dr. Jan Mokros is a Senior Research Scientist at the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance (MMSA), where she is Principal Investigator for the NSF-funded “STEM Guides” project, which is developing community-based STEM programs in rural regions of Maine. This project includes an out-of-school club for students, “Teen Science Cafés,” which aims to attract a broader range of youth to STEM. Jan also is co-Director of MMSA’s Reach Center for promoting science and math talent among Maine’s underserved 10-18 year olds. She has a B.A. in psychology and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Minnesota, Institute of Child Development. Jan has a background in mathematics education. Her original work as a developmental psychologist (at ) focused on girls’ development and socialization. She has developed educational programs such as “Math Clubs for Girls” and “Weaving Gender Equity into Mathematics Teaching.”

Jocelyn Runnebaum is a fisheries biologist in Maine. As a young girl, her Grandfather would take her deep-sea fishing in the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, where she fell in love with fishing and the ocean. After graduating with a B.S. in Aquatic Biology at the Stephen F. Austin State University (2006) in Texas, she moved to Alaska to fish commercially for salmon. After two years of commercial fishing in the summers (and training sled dogs in the winter), she felt she needed to make a bigger contribution to society and joined the Peace Corps. She worked with aquaculture farmers in Zambia in a rural village for two years and then extended her Peace Corps service to work at the WorldFish Center in the capital city of Zambia for another year. During this time she decided that she wanted to pursue an advanced degree in fisheries biology in combination with social aspects. She is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Marine Biology at the University of Maine under her advisor, Dr. Yong Chen, focusing on cooperative research in fisheries.

Dr. Elizabeth True is the Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management at Maine Maritime Academy, where she oversees Student Life, Athletics, Campus Safety, Admissions, and the Regiment of Midshipmen. Dr. True received her B.A. from where she majored in American Studies. Her graduate degrees include a M.Ed. from the University of Maine and an Ed.D. from the University of Vermont in Educational Policy and Leadership Studies. She has worked in administration at Cornell University, Castleton State University and Mount Ida College prior to coming to MMA. Elizabeth’s mother was an active member of AAUW during her career and Elizabeth followed her example to establish Maine Maritime as a college/university partner. Elizabeth is thrilled to be organizing the MMA-hosted STEM conference for AAUW of Maine this year as one of her directives is to engage more Maine girls in STEM education.

Dr. Kerry Whittaker has a Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of Rhode Island. Her research interests focus on the ecological, physical, and evolutionary processes that generate and maintain diversity in the ocean. She focuses on the vast molecular and functional diversity of marine phytoplankton, particularly diatoms. Using molecular approaches, her work explores global structure of and gene flow among phytoplankton populations over time. Marine phytoplankton play an important role in regulating Earth’s climate through the fixation of carbon, and as a vital step in the biological carbon pump. By identifying those factors influencing phytoplankton population structure, diversity, and evolution, Professor Whittaker hopes to better understand their potential for adaptation in a rapidly changing ocean. Professor Whittaker is also interested in intersections between ocean sciences, policy, communication, and STEM education. She is a recent Sea Grant marine policy alumna where she worked on NOAA’s endangered species listing team. While at NOAA, she contributed to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing decisions of such organisms as the African coelacanth (Laminaria chalumnae), Taiwanese pink dolphin (Sousa chinensis), and common thresher shark (Alopias vulpinis), among others.

In addition to Bates, Professor Whittaker is also the marine science faculty member at Coastal Studies for Girls (CSG), a place-based semester school in Maine focusing on marine science and leadership education for high school girls. Professor Whittaker is passionate about science education and the use of clear science communication to inform policy decisions and engage communities.

Veronica Young began her STEM work with elementary school youth for at the Maine Math and Science Alliance (MMSA) in 2013. Since 2014 she has been Lead STEM Guide in the Blue Hill Hub, focused on facilitating Teen Science Cafés on the Blue Hill peninsula. Sciencia, the name chosen by the first Youth leadership team, held its first café in Fall 2014.

Veronica currently works as a freelance writer for the Marine & Environmental Research Institute in Blue Hill. Raised in the UK and educated in Australia, she trained in science documentary production with BBC TV in London, which launched a lifelong interest in communicating science. One of her PBS NOVA documentaries was “The Pinks And The Blues” that explored biased socialization in creating intellectual gender differences and included Dr. Julia Sherman’s research on girls and math.